Levels of Good

Something has been rumbling around in my head lately; namely how there are so many levels of good. What I mean by that is with almost anything you can imagine: musicians, tennis players, writers, speakers, basically anything you “do” there are seemingly endless levels of ability or competency.

Take tennis for example. You can have a guy who is decent who can beat all his neighbors, but if he goes down to the local tennis center he’s a putz compared to the guys down there. Then take the best they have to offer, say the local “pro” who can beat anyone at the club, and send him to a tournament somewhere and he loses out in the first round. Take the winner of that tournament and send him to another tournament and he may not even qualify. See what I mean? Endless levels of “good.”

Or how about football? One team seems amazing; they make it to the finals of the playoffs beating great teams all along the way and they get whipped 35-0. They are supposed to be good. They are good, but there are endless levels of good.

The same thing holds for musicians. One guy knows all the chords and seems to be pretty good; then he meets another guy who plays a million times better, and that guy is put to shame by another guy who is in a “real band.”

What’s the answer to this? Is it that we shouldn’t worry about who is best? Should we just enjoy our level of competency (or our team’s level), whatever that is, and not worry about everybody else?  Or should we constantly strive to be better, always hoping we’ll someday be the best of the best? Or are categories like “better” and “best” not helpful to us, or even real?

The Bible answers a lot of these questions. It encourages us to always do our best, to do everything as “unto the Lord.” The Bible also teaches against envy and covetousness and against comparing ourselves against others.

Actually I wasn’t even looking for an answer. I was just making an observation. It certainly isn’t the greatest observation in the world (there’s always a better observation looming out there), but a plausible one nonetheless. Peace…Out.