As long as I remember back, I believed that “I am unique and special. I am so intelligent, smart, polite, well read and the nicest person I ever knew.” I collected evidences to prove this to myself. I got the best grades in my class at school, I was the school captain and all the teachers I liked, liked me back. It was only a few years later I understood that best in class meant nothing in a small sample size, 'school captain' happened due to a lot of campaigning by peers as they liked none of the other nominees and teachers had a soft corner for almost everyone in the class, as they saw them grow up over the years. But this experience was unnerving, and laid its first brick of doubt in my mind. Maybe I am a little less special than I thought.
Then this happened several times over the years. I thought I was the righteous one in grad school, taking on the role of class representative as a self sacrifice. Years later, I understood that the self sacrifice part was not required at all and no wonder my classmates were not obliged or falling over my feet in gratefulness because they never asked me to do those things. It was all me. Being in that role was the only thing which differentiated me from the others and made me special. But, a few more leadership roles, years and several grey hairs later, wisdom took my hand and lead me to the mirror of truth. There is absolutely nothing special about me.
Seeing the truth was brutal (especially for my ego) and .......extremely liberating. Believing myself special in some way always felt heavy, felt like a great responsibility. Felt that I should do 'big, amazing things' in life, what with all my gifts! This kind of thinking was a problem, when I was choosing my education, career or life partner! It led to confusion and being non committal. Basically the question - what the hell should I be doing or pursing in order to do these 'big amazing things' - riddled me a long time? And this 'big, amazing things' thought also troubled me deeply in later stages when all I wanted was to live a simple, quiet, satisfied life.
It took me some time to accept my non – specialness and soon I realised how much lighter it feels without lugging my ego everywhere I go or in whatever I think. It also released me of any entitlement I felt. Yes, the entitlement that we feel we all deserve, to have the things we want, whether we worked for it or not. We are all pretty average people after all. Maybe, just maybe, some of us are a little exceptional in one thing, but in the rest of the things we are average or maybe below others. That is a bitter pill to swallow. But think of this – we are afraid to accept our mediocrity and non-specialness because we believe that if we accept it, we will never achieve anything, never improve and that our life won’t matter. That is exactly what is wrong. If we consider our life worthwhile only if we do 'big amazing things', then most of humanity is worthless because they are not doing anything like that. They are just surviving.
Life has been pretty simple and easy over the last few years since I have understood my position in the bell curve. I am free of anxiety and pressure to prove myself. Ego is a bad loser and many a times tries to come back and raise the dust storm, clouding my vision. But that’s the thing about seeing the truth. Once you see it, you cannot un see it. No matter the storm!
P.S. 1 - Anyone who has become great and exceptional have become so by believing that they are not special, by believing that they should keep trying, keep improving, remain committed to their art/work.
P.S. 2 – I am reading Mark Manson’s book and though I didn’t like the beginning, the second half of the book is quite good. Point is, that I am writing this post highly influenced by what I read there.
P.S. 3 - I might still go on to do 'big, amazing things' but then consider it a side effect of losing the pressure of proving myself.
P.S. 3 – I should make an acronym for ‘ big, amazing things’ and take a copywright license or something.
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