KWAME

My father is the most influential person in my life. If you have met him, you know that he is a force of nature. I grew up watching him make something from nothing. For example, he took raw peanuts and cashews and a 5AM newspaper route and turned them into 40-year friendships with his customers, a nearly 30-year old church, a top knotch education for all his kids, and more. As I result, his words have a ton of weight with me. The maxims he has shared with me since I was young continually roll around in my head.

• I may not have much to pass down to you, but you have the Som-Pimpong name
• Show me your friends and I’ll show you your character
• Always find a way to be helpful
• Learn to play all the instruments
• Get a good career so that you’re not beholden to anyone

I could write an entire piece on each of these. The one I will dwell on in this piece came up after I brought home my last set of grades from Davidson. I landed the plane of my college career with a series of Bs and Cs, and a cumulative 2.23 GPA. His immediate response was disappointment: “What happened? You were an Obama.” Man, that hurt. I went to my room feeling like I had a dagger stuck in my chest. I’m grateful we were able to have a beautiful, healing conversation a few years ago about that moment.

Later in the day as we were driving somewhere I can’t quite remember, my father shared where his disappointment came from: “If better is possible, good is not enough.” I recognized this phrase from the Upward Bound program he had taught math classes at for decades, and at which I had been on the residential life staff for most of my college summers. I couldn’t really hear what he was saying in the moment as I was still trying to get the dagger out of my chest.

I’m currently working through some challenges and his encouragement to not settle for good enough came up for me last night. That reminder then made me think about Jeff Bezos’ last shareholder letter, in which he talks about the price required of those aspiring to live a distinct life:

We all know that distinctiveness – originality – is valuable. We are all taught to “be yourself.” What I’m really asking you to do is to embrace and be realistic about how much energy it takes to maintain that distinctiveness. The world wants you to be typical – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen.

You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it. The fairy tale version of “be yourself” is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously.

There was a gift in what my dad shared that I believe marries well with Bezos’ statement. My dad saw greatness in me and called me up to that standard. In order to avoid the gravity of the world, you have to chase greatness. That requires a different sort of energy than settling for good enough. Amisho Lewis says, “Life is a slam dunk if you’re living with low goals.” Settling for good will leave you more exposed to the strength of the world’s desire to bring you down to normalcy.

Don’t be confused. I’m not referring to a perfectionism that prevents you from moving forward, executing, shipping, whatever it is you’re on this earth to do. When you get to good enough, ship it. What I am saying is to not be content there. Get the feedback and iterate to continue your pursuit of better.

What exactly is the better that I am pursuing? I have long held my ambition to shape a world in which Black people are doing well socially, politically, and economically. That is a huge ambition that is bigger than me. Yet, I pursue it. How? My faith guides me. My name, Tometi, draws from Psalm 1:3 and Jeremiah 17:8. My name calls me up to be a tree planted by rivers of water. There is a requirement of me to live with intention. I am to be careful about the counsel I keep. I am to meditate on God’s word day and night. All this is rooted in a trust in God to order my steps. That positions me to have the resilience and strength to resist the world’s pulls to bring my ambition lower, to get me to settle for good enough.

I am dependent on my faith to fill me with the fuel I need to press on towards my calling. My ambition is to shape a world in which Black folks are doing well socially, politically, and economically. My wife, daughters, and the generations that follow require that I remain true to my ambition and exert the energy to bring that ambition to reality.