I’ll never forget watching a Mets game in the middle of the day one summer when I was 16 years old. It was a low key game in the middle of the season, nothing huge at stake quite yet. Tim McCarver used to announce the games on TV back then (the guy hasn’t aged a bit to this day!). A rookie was at bat (can’t remember who) and his childhood idol was on the other team pitching to him. McCarver’s co-announcer said,
“Man, what is going through that kid’s mind right now? His idol is pitching to him”.
Tim said, “This rookie has to switch his mindset now that he’s in the big leagues. No one wants to be a stargazer forever.”
That was a pretty deep quote as far as I was concerned, and it has stuck with me ever since.
To do anything great…to be anything great, we can not think to ourselves for one second that greatness is something other people achieve. This idea is subtly communicated to us on a daily basis; even more now due to the invent of technology. People spend so much time watching television, YouTube and other websites; we gaze at people singing on American Idol, news pundits, athletes, all trying to be their best while we sit and watch with a bag of potato chips, all the while wondering what it would be like to do those things ourselves.
Hell, even when I started writing this blog, I figured it would never get a lot of traffic because that’s what happens to other bloggers. It’s almost a natural reaction if we are not careful. We must, however, plow through these temporary feelings of inadequacy and use the greatness we do watch to inspire and teach us how to get there.
Now I’m not telling you to go out and audition for a Broadway show if you can’t sing. We all have different strengths (some hidden and some not). However, if you continue to dispel negative feelings and continue to learn, at some point you may find yourself in the “big leagues” with people who you used to watch and learn from with great reverence. Really, it could happen. When it does, just remember:
Don’t be a stargazer.
I am on a kick to learn a lot of piano repertoire I have never listened to before. Speaking of greatness, here is clip of Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2 played masterfully:
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