A Case for Brilliantly Boring
My bank recently ran a marketing campaign, saying “Brilliantly boring since 1865.” As someone who works in publishing/marketing, I loved it instantly. I told the teller their marketing team was perfect. In 2020, I had a slight hope that Biden would make politics boring again (spoiler: he did not). Most of us want our banks and politics to be brilliantly boring. We want to save our energy for our families, friends, and passion projects.
There was a pervasive teaching in the church as I grew up. I got the idea that if I surrendered ENOUGH to God: Great things would happen! I’d change the world! I’d join the ranks of great Christian heroes! I’d BE somebody. As I made my way through the youth group, and none of these things happened, I figured I was the one who messed up. I must not have surrendered ENOUGH. I needed to do more—be more.
Now that I have children, I am careful to make sure that they know they can and should do HARD things. But there is no pressure to do GREAT things. “Great” is too often a metric that is decidedly outside of our control. “Great” often means exceptional, or extraordinary. It also often looks down at the ordinary. It says that if you don’t get the attention, the numbers, the viral post: that you didn’t do enough, that you aren’t enough: WORK HARDER! I do want to cheer my girls on to brilliance: to give their personal best and to strive to grow, but mostly, the results are out of their hands. And that is okay.
How something is received does not determine the successfulness of what was done. In fact, there is a brilliant beauty in doing like faithfully without the fanfare. The majority of us in the world are not extraordinary. That quote from the Incredibles: “When everyone’s super, no one will be” comes to mind. Most of us aren’t GREAT, and that is not only okay, that is healthy. Most of the people I do know who are extraordinary in one part of their lives have a hard time being healthy, balanced people in other parts of their lives. Honestly, I don’t wish that on my kids: it is quite a responsibility.
It is said that a moderate voice will never go viral. The day-to-day faithfulness of healthy parenting is not applauded like some “hot tip” that will solve everything. Peacemakers mostly work behind the scenes, not on the stage. Take a look at the things that do go viral: most of them play on our emotions (awe, anger, or fear) or just happened to be at the right place at the right time with the right information. Maybe going viral isn’t the best thing that could happen.
In my 40s, I am becoming content with going after brilliantly boring. Some part of me still wishes I could write that best selling book, or my blog would be seen by more than the faithful few. But I am able to see that the effects of those things would tip my world around in ways that would not be helpful and would take my focus off of the things that I’ve chosen to value. We’ve got this one beautiful life to live. It doesn’t have to be viral to be great. Maybe it shouldn’t be.