Is It Better to Be a Good Person or a Great One?
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)
If you told me I had to choose between being a good person or a great one, I’d choose to be good.
Oz at the beginning of Oz: The Great and Powerful wanted the opposite. He wanted greatness.
Oz is a magician and a conman in 1905. He lies to women and breaks their hearts. He doesn’t know the meaning of friendship or fairness.
At the beginning of the movie, a woman who cares about him (and who he clearly has feelings for) shows up and tells him another man has proposed to her. She wants Oz to tell her what she should do.
Oz tells her that the man who proposed is a good man.
“You could be a good man,” she says. The pleading in her voice is clear.
Oz turns away. “I don’t want to be a good man. Kansas is full of good men who go to church and raise their families. My father was a good man who plowed the earth and died face down in it. I don’t want to be a good man. I want to be a great one.”
He wants to be rich and famous like Thomas Edison or Harry Houdini.
While running away from a man whose wife he defiled, Oz hops into a hot air balloon, gets sucked up by a tornado, and ends up deposited in the land of Oz. (Yes, the land and the man share a name.)
And when he lands, everyone believes he’s the prophesied wizard who will save them from the wicked witch. Oz knows he doesn’t have any actual magical powers, but he lets them believe it because he sees it as his ticket to greatness—to gold, hero worship, and women.
To save the land of Oz, he has to learn that what matters most isn’t greatness at all. It’s goodness.
We can’t control greatness any more than Oz could control the tornado that sucked him up and dumped him in the land of Oz. We can make it more likely to happen, in the same way that Oz made it more likely the tornado would suck him up by being in a hot air balloon than if he’d been on the ground, but we can’t guarantee it. He could have been sucked up off the ground or left untouched in the air.
We can’t change the genetic code that decides if we’re born with a great singing voice, or an eye for color and proportion, the creativity it takes to be a writer, or the steady hands of a world-class brain surgeon, the ability to catch a ball or to sprint like an Olympian. Wishing and working for it can’t guarantee greatness.
But goodness? Goodness is a choice. We decide whether or not we live a life of character.
At the end of the movie, when Oz and Glinda the good witch have chased the wicked witch sisters from the Emerald City, Glinda tells Oz, “I knew you had it in you all along.”
Oz smiles his cheeky smile. “Greatness?”
“Better,” she replies. “Goodness.”
Goodness will always be better, always be more important than greatness.
And sometimes, when we work hard on goodness instead, greatness follows.
If you could only have one, would you rather be a good person or a great one?
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Mar 18, 2013 @ 13:06:54
You know, it’s funny that the thing I identified with the most as far as Oz the character went was his need to be more than he was. I’ve lived in a small town, and that suffocating feeling is nearly overwhelming. The need to get out, to do more, to be more, to not rot away in that same tiny town doing the same thing day after day and working just to have a few beers on Saturday night…that feeling of needing more than that out of life is what drove me to college, to a master’s degree, and beyond that, to write. If people didn’t have that drive, then a lot of great things (the lightbulb for instance) would never exist. So I think it’s a tough question…to which I say why can’t we be both? I can sit here and be good all day, but to want to make something better, to be MORE than you are, is pretty good too.
Of course, sleeping around with other men’s wives was probably never going to get Oz where he wanted to go…but I do understand his yearning for greatness.
Mar 18, 2013 @ 13:17:31
“In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.” Shakespeare “Twelfth Night”
The achieving of it is, of course, the hard part. If everyone could be “great”, we’d have to find another word. I know I try to be good, which is, as you’ve pointed out, more within our own control.
Mar 18, 2013 @ 14:45:09
As I read your post, snippets from Stephen Schwartz’s musical Wicked played through my head:
GLINDA: And Goodness knows the wicked’s lives are lonely / Goodness knows the wicked die alone / It just shows when you’re wicked / You’re left only on your own
and
GLINDA/ELPHABA (the Wicked Witch of the West): Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better, but / because I knew you, I have been changed for good
And then there’s Little Red Riding Hood’s tween-aged – er – wisdom (?) in regards to the [big bad] Wolf from Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods:
LITTLE RED: And take extra care with strangers / Even flowers have their dangers / And though scary is exciting / Nice is different than good.
I’d rather be good. Greatness is appealing, and being nice is all well and good, but without goodness at their foundation, neither will be long-lasting, and they certainly won’t keep us company.
Mar 18, 2013 @ 17:23:27
I would far rather be good than great – in fact, despite by dreams of becoming a best-selling author, I would rather avoid fame. I’ve never understood the desire for everyone to know your name and face and to have scads of money (I really only want enough to be comfortable). All that brings nothing but trouble.
Mar 18, 2013 @ 19:29:49
This is such a timely question. As we grow more and more interconnected, sometimes it seems like we confuse famous with great. What does it mean to be great?
In some ways that’s easier to visualize greatness than goodness. Greatness is something along the lines of making a change that many people are helped by, I think. Goodness? Are we, for instance, “good” if we drive our cars for every little thing, even when we know that we’re contributing to global warming? Can we really choose to be of good character — is it that simple? What if I had brain damage that caused spontaneous urges to kill? We can only do our best, but what exactly is our best? Not saying I don’t have a sense of goodness or greatness, they are qualities that you know when you see, but wonder about how much choice we have in the matter. I’d be happy to confident of being either one!
Mar 18, 2013 @ 22:55:32
Hi Marcy! Goodness, yes, I would have to say goodness. When one is good, he does things for the betterment of others. If one views themself as great, perhaps he is of a more selfish nature. So I would want to be good. Although, sometimes it’s hard to be good. He, he , he! 🙂
Mar 19, 2013 @ 05:02:56
Loved this, Marcy, and what great comments. The Shakespeare quote from weetiger is one of my favorites. Goodness is not easy. It’s a daily struggle. Perhaps that’s why Oz though he wanted the more ephemeral greatness 🙂
Mar 19, 2013 @ 14:01:09
Great post, Marcy! I have no desire to be great, although I like it a lot when readers think my books are great! 🙂
And now I really want to see this movie.
Mar 19, 2013 @ 20:04:19
Thoughtful as always, Marcy, although I haven’t seen the movie yet.
The way good and great are defined, I’d much rather be good. Goodness comes from your core – the heart of who you are, built upon by the choices you’ve made. Goodness makes you honest and caring and helpful. (hmm, sounds like a boy scout)
But it also seems like we connect greatness with fame. Can a person be a great inventor if no one knows his name? Can a person be a great writer if only a few people read his work?
And, more importantly to me, why can’t we consider someone great because they do their best at a mundane job for years on end, just to support their family? Why isn’t raising children to be responsible, productive, caring adults considered as great an achievement as building a multi-million dollar company?
I would love it if goodness were a criteria for greatness – wouldn’t that be *great*?
Mar 20, 2013 @ 03:16:59
Marcy, a very thought provoking post. In my opinion, to be good or great is only something I can strive for. I want to be good and I want to be great. I try to make choices from a place that is honest, helpful, and caring (thanks for giving me the words, Jennifer!). I believe those are good values, so if I strive to live by those values, then I will be good. To me greatness doesn’t mean fame or power or money. It is a level of good, a level of proficiency. But other than striving for it, I have no control over whether others will judge me as great, or even good. All I can do is live by values I understand to be good and leave the judging as to whether I achieved goodness or greatness to others. 🙂
Mar 20, 2013 @ 09:23:24
Wow. This really made me think. I guess I had always thought of greatness as better than goodness. But you explained what they really mean. And now I would definitely pick goodness. I know that the way I behave has an impact on other people and I want it to be a good one. Hurting people and taking advantage of them is not the way to get anywhere. And now you make me want to see the movie, too. 🙂
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Mar 28, 2013 @ 15:19:32
Beautiful post Marcy! And I certainly agree. Goodness matters far more than greatness. We have to be able to look ourselves in the mirror at the end of the day. It’s a noble pursuit to be great but can’t come at the expense of our character.
May 15, 2013 @ 15:28:26
I want to be an actor every actor want’s to be a great one but to be a great one you to be a good one !