Mediocrity Killed the Cat, Curiosity Saved It!
I am tired of whiney people. I’m not tired of the people; I’m tired of their whining. For a while, I blamed them for their whininess, but now I’m beginning to realize that they are innocent of their guilt! It truly isn’t their fault that they are guilty of being whiney! The fact of the matter is the only person I can blame is myself, and all of the other people in the world who perpetuate a system that glorifies mediocrity.
Where are all of the fanatics? Iran has a few. North Korea has a few. Hezbollah has a few. We call them fascist, we call them psychotic, we call them crazy, and yet they have more commitment and dedication to their cause than we can muster in our pinky toe. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying what they believe is the answer, however their belief is. Not the things they believe, the degree of faith that they put into it.
Often times we talk about all the great ways that we need to change. All the hundreds of things we see that we need to do to be great leaders, but then we sit our lazy butts down on the sideline and watch the game.
Excuses like; “I don’t have enough time”, “Well, everyone has a life”, “I might get hurt!”, “I don’t know what to do”, and even “I just don’t understand” become cop-outs that let us live in the complacent and powerless world of mediocrity.
Where are the radicals? Where are the flakey psychos? Where are the people who make me gawk and stare? Where are the ones who challenge me with their lifestyle?
Those are the real leaders. Those are the real revolutionaries. Those are the ones who know what it is to be a real change addict.
What I’ve found is that mediocrity will kill the danged cat. When the cat gets in the middle of the road and wavers is when it gets ran over. Curiosity is what will drive us to the other side. It’s curiosity that will save us. Are you getting run over… or are you crossing the road?
We have made an exception that says we can believe in something without acting on it. We say that you can be a Christian “believer” without having to pay any price to be that. You can live the way you always have and you can still “have a life”.
We need more “radical jihadist”… not more crazy Islamic factions; we need more people who are willing to die for what they believe in. Once again, I’m not promoting their beliefs or even their methods, I am promoting their BELIEF. I am promoting their “commitment” to living and dying. The thought that they really have no life anymore, except what they find in their purpose and their cause. People don’t fly planes into buildings to get virgins… they fly planes into buildings because they have a radical BELIEF that they are doing the RIGHT thing! They are 100% sold out! Let me re-emphasize, I do not believe that it was the right thing for them to do that, but without a doubt they had to believe it. They were not incoherent psychotic murderers. Murderers… yes, but incoherent and psychotic… definitely not. They knew what they were doing and knew they would not live through it, and still chose to die for their beliefs. Dying for it didn’t make it right, and dying for it didn’t justify what they did by any means, however it is a level of commitment that we should envy. Look at our own history! What happened to that streak in our own beliefs? What happened to radical “tea parties”? What happened to the Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty and give me death!”? What happened to the Martin Luther King’s who said “I have a dream”, and were willing to die for it? It was the radicals who shaped this country into a great nation, not the mediocre conservatives, liberals, and what we have defined as “christians”.
Last time I checked, the New Testament Church got killed for their beliefs (like many of you want to kill me right this moment). There was no middle ground. If you believed, you gave all. That’s the reason radical belief will divide mother, brother, father, sister, and anything else that gets in your way.
CHRIST CAME TO DIVIDE, not to unite. Jesus said that he had come to DIVIDE… I DIDN’T SAY THAT! The problem is we want everyone to accept us. We want everyone to “join our cause”. People don’t join causes, they join people. A cause is dead without the people behind it. If you want to be a real leader and you want people to give to your cause… set the example. Stop your mediocrity and give all! It’s called covenant, it’s called relationship, it’s called REALITY!
Don’t get me wrong… Curiosity WILL KILL YOU! But at least you get to choose your death. I would much rather die, chasing curiosity than die by getting run over in the middle of the danged road!
Stop giving yourself the option of a middle ground! Lose your life to your cause! Lay it all down. Even Christ said that, “he who loses his life will find it”. If you would hurry up and die you would find a lot better life! Not DIE physically, but die to all the petty mediocre things in your life that limit you from being truly bought by your cause.
Look, don’t go be a flake and a psycho just to be an idiot. Have a purpose for your “insanity”! If you are weird just for the sake of being weird, you are as annoying as the whiney people. YOU MUST HAVE A CAUSE!
OH …. AND ANOTHER THING! There is no such thing as a grace period for the truly sold out! There is no “ramp up time”. There is no “acclamation period”. Think of it this way. When you go to buy a car, do you pay the dealer then drive the car about an hour a day for a couple of weeks, then decide… now I can drive it 2 or 3 hours a day… then maybe 4 or 5 hours? Do you?! No you buy the car and it belongs to you! You drive it whenever you want, however you want, as long as you want. Your car doesn’t decide that it only wants to be yours for these fifteen minutes and then after that it will go back to “its life”. NO! THE CAR BELONGS TO YOU and it HAS to do what you want it to.
Do you really believe that you are bought with a price? Do you really believe that your life is not your own? That Christ truly died for you? If so then you belong to someone else. No acclamation time, no trial period, no test driving for Jesus. NO YOU ARE HIS WHENEVER, with WHOEVER, and HOWEVER He wants you!
If you aren’t a Christian, your cause still should own you. Otherwise, why are you even alive? What is the point in living if you aren’t consumed by a cause…destined for a purpose? Tom Peters is consumed by innovation, Seth Godin is obsessed with marketing, John Maxwell is psychotic about leadership… what are you? What has you so thoroughly unbalanced that it gives your life real value?
WRITE IT DOWN NOW!
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3 comments:
Ramp up time in my opinion is only required for doing. Not for becoming radical. I may not instantly become the end all be all example of my decision, but it is the radicalness of even the foolish attempts to be that "role model" that will push me to rapid change. I understand your point, however I think that we hide our unwillingness to commit behind the veil of "ramp up time".
We must understand that we don't become radical about actions, but we become radical about the concepts that motivate us.
Think of it this way. I can be obsessive about being organized and following through. But why am I obsessive? I can have a variety of reasons. In my opinion the actions of becoming obsessed with organization and perfecting that part takes a lifetime, but the concept that motivates me happens in an instance. It's not a cognitive thing when it grabs you. It's something that clicks with something inside that you can even fully reason. Think about the John Maxwell's, the Tom Peter's the, Seth Godin's, they have all been obsessed with their purpose for years, even though they might not fully understand what they are obsessed with. As a matter of fact, I think if we understood it all our obsession would die down.
Also, I'm not sure you can make the decision until you do spend time around it. However, I think the "ramp up" occurs before any decision. Once the decision is made, the die is cast. I agree that you have to HEAR the "gospel" of the purpose first, but after it's heard it should grab something deeper than your understanding.
If it was understanding based, no one would every fly into a building, no one would ever do anything that threatened their life, no one would ever do anything that seemed that the "negatives" outweighed the "positives".
Thanks Paul, sometimes I fear my own posts. It helps to have someone re-affirm me. I'll be honest. I wrestled with whether or not to be so direct. But I can't hide from who I am, I guess I'm "obsessed". And I agree, I didn't need your approval to get me to post this, but boy it sure helps to hear that someone else agrees. Thanks again for the fantastic observations and keep it coming!
Why are people radicals? I can't imagine someone looking at them and saying, "Someday, you will believe something so true, that you will die for it." Were does that passion come from?
How do you become a radical? Is it an instant thing? Or maybe, it is a spark that develops in you to the place where it consumes you? What is the purpose in being radical, anyway?
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