The Greater Fool is someone with the perfect blend of self-delusion and ego to believe that he can succeed where others have failed. This whole country was built by greater fools. — Sloan Sabbith, The Newsroom Season 1, Episode 10
Most of us spend a lot of energy trying to avoid looking foolish or acting foolish. Perhaps you worry about your credibility or your reputation. Maybe you fear rejection of your ideas or yourself.
It’s much easier to play it safe: to hang back and wait for others to go first so you don’t have to look foolish if your idea fails or your risk didn’t pay off.
Letting someone else pave the path is more prudent. It’s easier. Safer.
There is nothing wrong with playing it safe, with being risk averse or conservative in your nature.
Not everyone is cut out to be a leader. Some people do better playing within a structure that is set up for them.
Maybe you like to know the rules in advance and play by them. Perhaps you like to see where a path will lead before you embark on it.
If so, that’s ok.
Knowing who you are is an important skill. If you’re not a risk-taker, if you prefer to follow a path that someone else laid out, then your best play is to own that part of yourself.
On the other hand, if you know that your natural state of being is to be the first one to take the leap, and if you’re holding back simply out of fear of looking foolish, you’re going to be in for a lot of suffering.
We need the Greater Fools to set the pace, to take the risks that others won’t take, to carve the paths toward new adventures or discoveries.
The Greater Fools are the leaders, the visionaries, the people who have the ideas of what might be possible way before most people can see what they see.
To many people, your actions will look foolish. The naysayers may talk about you behind your back, or insult you to your face.
In Tarot, the Fool is the initiating card in the major arcana. The Fool stands on the edge of the cliff, chest puffed up and proud. He carries a small pouch on the edge of his stick — he isn’t weighted down by the excess baggage of expectations or shame about who he is.
They may laugh as you stumble and fall. But in the end, the joke will be on them.
Confident and assured, the Fool forges ahead without a fear of failure. He knows all life is an experiment, it’s all a big game.
He embraces his nature as a Fool, and then goes off to explore new frontiers and carve new paths.
It may take a while, but eventually others catch up. By the time they walk the roads paved by the Fool, the Fool has moved on.
The Greater Fool is not the one left behind; it is the one who was ahead of their time.
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