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Master Don Juan
TO BE ADDED TO THE BOOK OF SHUMA GORA:
GREATNESS: HOW TO ACHIEVE IT
How would you truly describe someone who is great? Greatness is not something that can be put into words, it is instead more of a quality that someone inherently has. People who are great have a subtle way of letting you know that they are great; it is as if an aura of greatness hangs about them.
Greatness is, like many other qualities, a mindset. Once you have mastered the mindset of greatness, greatness will be your possession and you will be able to use it at your every whim and reap the benefits that it has to offer. So how does one master the mindset of greatness?
I have pondered over this for a great while, and I have realized that nothing has to be done to achieve greatness—GREATNESS IS ACHIEVED BY SIMPLY REALIZING AND ACCEPTING THAT YOU ALREADY HAVE THE ABILITY TO BE GREAT!
Someone who knows that they are great needs no assurance from others of this, because their confidence is unshakable. Greatness is the product of setting a higher standard for yourself, simply because you know that you can do it. Greatness is power under control—a truly great man does not need to tell others that he is great. This is because he knows that his greatness is best conveyed through action rather than idle boasting.
I have no respect for those who go through life boasting about their accomplishments, for it is clear to me that the people who resort to this have no true greatness of their own. This is because if they did, they would allow their actions to do their boasting for them. People who must tell people of their accomplishments are merely trying to mask their own insecurity by trying to impress people. Those who boast about their greatness futilely yet fervently hope that their words are enough to mask the emptiness that they have within them.
Greatness does not come with elevating yourself at the expense of others. If you must raise yourself high above others, then that proves nothing but a lack of true greatness. This is because those who are truly great need not elevate themselves- people will automatically hold them in high regard because people can see that a truly great man has respect for both them and for himself.
In this way, greatness is closely related to empathy. A great man feels empathy with those around him, for he knows that he does not have to raise himself up in order to assert his greatness. He knows that people have little respect for those who elevate themselves above others for the sake of satisfying their personal ego. Raising yourself above others is not greatness; it is merely conceit.
This does not mean that a truly great man is afraid to take glory for himself. This is one of the marks of greatness. However, there is a difference between taking glory for yourself and taking ALL the glory for yourself. The man who claims everything for himself is not truly great because he is not giving credit where the true credit is due.
A man who is a master of greatness is a master of humility. This is because a truly great man is so sure of his greatness that he feels that he need not constantly display it. Knowing that he is truly great is enough for him, because he knows that that is all that he must do in order to capture and maintain true greatness.