Recently there has been many deaths occurring around the world. It makes me think a little how life can be so short and death so quick and sudden.
There was the flood in Thailand which claimed quite a number of life.. the death of Steve Jobs, the 2 years old in China and more recently Simoncelli. All these news are not good news and the deaths of the 3 latter individuals had cause people around the world to react in a certain manner.
Of course everyone around the world was in a rage over the death of the 2 years old China girl who was ran over and nobody seemed to care for her life. People were talking about it from the office, to the restaurant to the online community condemning the act and baffled at how can we humans be so inhumane towards other humans, so young a child at that.
Millions of people were mourning over the death of Steve Jobs as well. People were crying and saying what a lost to the world as someone so great has passed away. I don't have any Apple products and to me, his death did not made that big of an impact to me. But it got me thinking, what constitutes 'greatness'?
I came across this article http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column_comment-steve-jobs-wasnt-great-he-wasnt-even-close_1596888 which made me think of what constitutes greatness. Of course, comparing Jobs to Salk is like comparing an apple to orange and is by no means a comparable comparison but it really got me thinking, what constitutes 'greatness' and how do one achieve that 'greatness' to be a legendary figure?
I suppose one trademark of 'greatness' is that the person leaves a footprint behind to the world. both Jobs and Salk managed to leave their footprints behind. The bigger the footprint, the greater the 'greatness' of a person. Question is, how do we leave footprints?
Surely to be able to leave a big footprint, one needs to be quite intelligent to be able to influence most of the people of its' time. So great intellect which affects people is one measure of greatness.
Another measure of greatness would be how one has helped the world for the better. Mother Teresa is 'great' but I am not too sure whether she's intellectually great. Her heart is great and she left a big footprint with her big heart. I suppose a truly 'great' person is someone who is an intellect with a heart.
GREATNESS = INTELLECT + HEART
I want to strive to be someone with both as I can see the danger of having only the mind and not the heart.
Whatever it is, the death of these 3 people are landmark deaths and we hope their deaths can only change the world for the better. Maybe China is going to have a policy change. Maybe more people will strive to have both intellect and heart. And maybe, there will be more safety measures in the future for athletes.
Maybe, all of us should start valuing our lives.
God Bless~
