For each pair, pick the better.  Pepsi or Coke?  Tiger or Jack?  Michael or LeBron?  Beatles or Elvis?  LP or CD?  Tastes Great or Less Filling?  So many tough choices.  Blindfolded, any experienced soda drinker (we called it pop in Buffalo) can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi.  The blindfold was just a prop.  Jack didn’t drink the protein shakes or have golf clubs made by NASA.   I say MJ because I’m 50, but my son says LeBron because he is 13.  Elvis sang Hey Jude, and it was terrible, and John Lennon sang Hound Dog, which sucked.  LPs are cool, CDs are easier to handle, and who cares about Miller Light?  Seriously.  Who?

I guess it is human nature to rank things in order from best to worst.  Only one team gets the trophy at the end of the season, and only one restaurant can be at the very top of Zagat’s list.  When traveling, do you check to see what Yelp has to say about a place before you take your seat?  Even Amazon is in on the act with its famous five-star rating system.  Anything below 4.5 stars is likely a death sentence for certain small companies.  And, if you are like me, you only click buy if 14,000 or so have made the financial commitment before you.  Don’t forget to rate your Uber driver…and know that you’ll be rated as a passenger, too.

It is hard to believe that even the very best at something can still do it poorly. Take, for instance, Kenny Rogers' song "The Gambler."  He did not write it, nor was he the only country singer to perform it.  According to the Google Machine, Kenny went to the recording studio to record it on June 16, 1978.  Then, just 20 days later, Johnny Cash went to a studio and recorded the very same song.  Cash’s version has 445,000 hits on YouTube.  Kenny has more than a quarter of a billion.  Similarly, Elvis has 36 million views to John Lennon’s 15 thousand – two very different versions of Hound Dog.   

I do not know if Rogers and Cash were competing to see who could sing The Gambler better, but clearly, Kenny won—selling more than 35 million copies of The Gambler Album. As for Lennon – he had no business singing Hound Dog, and conversely, Elvis went far out of his lane with whatever one would call his version of Hey Jude.  I suppose that it didn’t work – and would never work – because they were both trying (for some stupid reason) to be someone they weren’t.  In general, people should not do that for any reason – and more importantly, we should let our kids know that it is just fine for them to be themselves as well. 

Educators and parents, we must be careful here. Children hit a certain age at which they start looking to their left and right and noticing things: who is taller, skinnier, fatter, smarter, faster, stronger, has better clothes, and has more friends. They also see who gets more likes, has a longer streak on Snap, or has more followers, comments, and views.  Then we come in, hitting them with the test scores and the grades.  As the pressure mounts, the joy of learning dissipates for many of them.  This is why when I go into a second-grade classroom and ask the children, “Who knows how to read?”  They raise their hands and jump up and down, yelling, “I do!” and “Me!”  But as they age, that enthusiasm fades – not just about reading, but other school things too. 

The state assessments, tests, final exams, and GPA take the fun out of it. Recently, I’ve seen classrooms without grades—and student enrollments in classes with that structure climb. So, I know educators are out there, seeking more to unlock their students' potential than assigning numbers and letters to their efforts.    

I heard the most amazing quote today, that I will not soon forget. “Watch carefully the magic that occurs when you give a person just enough comfort to be themselves.”  Apparently, Atticus Finch said in To Kill a Mockingbird – so we know that Harper Lee wrote it.  If we stop forcing people into boxes or requiring that they meet arbitrary standards, they often exceed our expectations. In the same way that Lennon and Elvis faltered when trying to be someone else, our children and students lose their spark when pressured to fit a mold. 

This message doesn’t just apply to what takes place at the kids’ table; we should also practice it in our big-kid relationships. Like the kids, we grown-ups sometimes need to compare, rank, and measure up against our neighbors – when we’re all on our own paths. Whether in the workplace, friendships, or our communities, people flourish when given room to grow and the freedom to express themselves. When we stop competing and start supporting, the magic of collaboration takes hold. It’s incredible what people can accomplish when they feel respected and appreciated.

We all have the power to make others feel comfortable enough to be themselves.  Thanks, Pastor Jamie, for the inspiration on this one.