On the scales of judg­ment that rule so preva­lent in this coun­try, what makes the dif­fer­ence between great­ness and being not so great?

Is it what you do for a liv­ing that makes you great? Is it how you pre­pared for that doing, i.e. num­ber of years of for­mal edu­ca­tion, degrees, certifications?

Or, is it who you are? Who you aspire to be? Who you’ve become?

I applied to col­lege last night for the first time in my 53 years of learn­ing. Some of the ques­tions on the appli­ca­tion ignited in me a famil­iar feel­ing of inad­e­quacy. Not that I didn’t know the answers, but that the answers seemed so “less than great.”

After I hit the sub­mit but­ton, I closed my eyes and sat with that feel­ing; allow­ing it to go wher­ever it needed to go and tell me what­ever it needed to say.

Suddenly, a wise and won­der­ful voice rose to the sur­face and said in a very author­i­ta­tive man­ner, “Don’t be Ridiculous!” I rec­og­nized that voice imme­di­ately. It was an echo from the past. The voice of a highly edu­cated and accom­plished man who left this world too soon. “Thanks, Dad,” I said to myself.

And then I decided to indulge in the process of per­sonal inquiry and brave the ques­tion, What makes me so great?

And here’s the first thing that came to mind. Like Steve Jobs, I didn’t get a col­lege degree. And also like Steve (as writ­ten so elo­quently by his sis­ter in her heart­felt eulogy), “Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods.”

Love…that’s what makes me go great. I believe in love in all it’s forms. I believe that love is the most pow­er­ful force in the Universe. Love can heal and evolve us from any state of not so great to pure great­ness. Love of self. Love for one another. Love of the planet.

Because of love, I know who I am. I know what I’m made of and what I can and need to do to bring a mes­sage of hope, faith and heal­ing to a world that tends to place love in the back seat and allow fear to take the wheel.

This pow­er­ful process of dis­cov­ery served to melt those feel­ings of not being enough and reminded me of what is truly impor­tant in my life.

So, I am going to col­lege! I’m hap­pily expand­ing my mind and my hori­zons. I’m pur­su­ing only the sub­jects that will help for­tify my mis­sion to teach mind­ful­ness, move­ment and well­ness in the world.

I’ve learned vol­umes in this first half of my life. Now I’m excited to see what lies in store for the sec­ond half!

I’m feel­ing pretty great right now. I hope you are too.