Much too broad of a statement.
I don't think everyone has a desire to "be great", but I think everyone has the desire to make an impact. To be more descriptive, I'll share a sermon I heard at a UUI Church a few years ago. It really made an impact on me to view life in this way:
When I think of the human experience, sometimes I picture it as a great symphony that has been playing since before we first began to write things down. And as we are born, we pick up our instrument and join in. And everyone is playing the music of their understanding and their experience, but everyone is also playing off of everyone else, like a vast improv.
We inherit at first the melodies that surround us when we are born, the melodies of our communities and our culture, the melodies of our family and our ancestors, and these may be the predominant notes we play for our whole lives. But as we age and grow, we also learn to unlock the music of our own soul. And as we play our own notes, maybe hesitantly at first and then more confidently, we can’t know what happens. It is not up to us. Maybe we sing our song for awhile, and it is good and beautiful, and the song dies out. There will be other songs.
But maybe we play our notes, and they get picked up in some other section, maybe a few bars or maybe just the sense of our verve and attitude, or maybe the entire melody is picked up down the line, and when we are no longer playing, still the music of our soul is echoing throughout the symphony, here and there in the players who have been moved by it, who carry it forward and add their own inspiration. And in this way it spreads out throughout the piece.
There are melodies that have been echoing throughout the symphony for generations, each one the unique song of a human soul, and perhaps they will someday fade and perhaps not, but we each get our chance to play however briefly, and for a time however briefly it is our playing, all of our playing together, that sustains the entire piece.
We can’t know how long we have to play. We can’t know who is being moved by our song. Now, maybe we’ve reached a point where we feel we’re not as sharp as we used to be, maybe we feel we’re tired or scattered or worn down or worn with grief, and our playing is off. But I believe if we are living each moment with integrity, then the richness of our soul shines through in the playing no matter what.
