Ordinary

There are about nine billion people on the planet, so even if you’re one in a million, that means there are still at least nine thousand people just like you.  Or, as wise counsel counsels us, “You’re not special and no one cares.”

Of course, there are some people who are special: Greta Thunberg, Beyoncé, Julio Rodriguez, for instance, but, for the rest of us, we’re just the rest of us. 

This used to bother me and resulted in my inability to accept the truth of the matter.  I tended towards a kind of solipsistic perspective which put me at the center of all things.  If I didn’t exist, then nothing would; therefore, I had to be special—in fact, the most special of things in the entire Universe.

Now, however, I’m comfortable with my ordinariness; I’m glad that I’m just another random human being going about their day.  Granted, I’m a good deal more fortunate than many, but this doesn’t confer upon me any distinction; it just makes me one of many who ought to be grateful for what they have.

Perhaps surprisingly, accepting all that I’m not doesn’t make me less likely to act in ways that define me as an individual: I still try to be creative; I continue to have my “ways;” and I haven’t given up the pretension that what I do or don’t do matters in some way.  It’s just that I realize that I’m not the only one who’s just like this, and no doubt there are many others just like this who do it better than me.

I’m not even the special edition version of me, in other words.

But that’s cool, because it means that instead of having to be one in nine billion, I get to be one of nine billion.  Rather than having to stand out, I get to stand with.  I’m a member of the biggest team in the world: Team Ordinary.

And that’s special.