Monday, August 18, 2014

Ordinary

Good morning to ya all. Sorry, it's been a while...

Something's been bothering me these past few days, and I thought I'd share it with you, my three readers. Often lately, I've been getting this recurring thought in my head. I go about my day to day stuff and I keep thinking to myself, Is what you're doing today just ordinary? Are you making any impact to the world at all? What have you learned about yourself and about the world today? And often it leads to the more heavy question, Is your life turning out to be just ordinary?

I think that this has become my greatest fear. Being just ordinary. And with each passing day, I think to myself, what epic thing can I bring to today, that will make my life extraordinary? I think its important to understand what that means, at least what it means to me. And maybe writing about it will help.

There are extraordinary people that we are exposed to through our everyday media that are doing awesome things in the world, inventing solutions to world problems, making art and music and introducing new thoughts, ideas and knowledge to millions of people. We see them on our facebooks and twitters, and they make an impact on our lives. Movie stars, billionaire entrepreneurs, sports icons... we are surrounded by the extraordinary... but our lives seem to reflect the contrary. We become the acknowledgers of extraordinary, not the architects.

And through this lens, we are given an impression of what it means to be acknowledged for your contributions, and we strive for that kind of achievement in our own lives as well. If tomorrow, this blog becomes the most read website in the world, I will become an achiever to you and to my friends and to people that I will never meet. I will become successful... or at least I will then be perceived as a successful person.

I guess that's pretty straight forward...

But what about the people whom we don't hear about. The people that live silent lives and still lead extraordinary existences. I can't even tell you about them because I haven't heard of them on my facebooks and tweeties, but I'm sure that they exist. That guy who writes songs with his guitar in his soundbound room, or that girl who paints the most insightful canvases and keeps them under her bed. Or what about that man who gives his time every night to help at the local homeless shelter. What about them?

I once read somewhere that the true test of one's character is what they do when nobody is watching. This is the kind of extraordinary I'd like to pursue. I want to be able to say that I lived my life for me first, and I did the things that I did for my own acknowledgement and recognition. I want to make an impact on people's lives and be okay if they don't even realize it. I want to see me shine. And then, maybe I will learn something about myself...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Me too! I always made excuses for why my life was ordinary, saying that I didn't have the opportunity or I wasn't recognized enough. Changing the world for recognition's sake is (in my opinion) selfish. What can I do for the world purely because there is a need for it?

Keep rambling Mr. Donut!