Success or Greatness

Watching the film Elizabethtown made me think of the difference between success and greatness. If you read newspapers, watch TV, or just observe the world, you will realize that the world is more concerned with success than greatness. Schools reward the students who get the correct answers while companies measure an employee's performance if the actual result is equal to or greater than the expected outcome.

If you don't succeed, you might as well vanish into thin air because in the eyes of everyone --- you have failed.

What these people don't realize is that even though you failed, there is a thing called greatness which can never be measured. This intangible quality is the one that is almost always forgotten. We often forget to take note of a person's generosity, martyrdom, positivism, and kindness. If one possesses these characters, he/she can be called great because one does more than what is expected of him/her.

Should this really be a choice for us? Can we be successful and great at the same time?