Live Like You Aren't Special

As much as you want to believe you are special - you are not. This doesn’t mean you don’t matter - you do. But, by accepting your lack of being special in relation to others, you can begin to be more content with your life.

How is that possible? If I don’t believe in myself and see the uniqueness of myself, how can I be my best self? The thing is, while you as you are special, you are not special in the context of the world around you. You are just one of many in this world. What you do will not matter, other than in the small contributions you make to others.

While this sounds very negative and is against the American idea of personal exceptionalism; being realistic actually helps to make life much more livable. Since life is more than just focusing on yourself, and the choices and actions you make are connected to the whole of society, you have the ability to be free to be who you are without the pressure to be more than you are.

The biggest problem for most people is the need to be more than they are right now. Be more beautiful, sexy, strong, rich, successful, accepted, famous, peaceful, happy, and so on. Always more. There is a feeling that I am special and therefore I have to prove that I am via one of the many mores. This then creates a situation where you can’t be satisfied with where things are right now - the situation you exist in at this moment.

Because you are special, you must have whatever bright shiny things you think designates you as special, otherwise you must not be special and life is not worthwhile. The problem with this thinking is - you are not special in relation to the world. You are just an organism who exists. Therefore, your desire to have more in order to prove you're special just creates anxiety and stress for yourself. Instead of feeling content with where things are, you feel that you are somehow missing out and not realizing everything you should in life. This thinking, and living, becomes a messy loop that takes you round and round with no way out and no happiness in sight.

The way off the loop-de-loop is to accept where you are right now. To find contentment with what you have and who you are. This does not mean you can’t strive for more for yourself, but it does mean finding acceptance for where things are in life as you live them. The goal is to be able to look at yourself, see where life has taken you and know that it isn’t all bad. Life doesn’t need to be different in order for you to appreciate what you’ve accomplished. Even if that accomplishment right now is just being alive.

There are so many issues that can come from not finding joy or contentment in where you are now. The realization that you are not the greatest, along with the disappointment and dissatisfaction of things not moving as you think, can weigh you down. Thereby restricting your ability to believe something good about yourself and life. Finding that life is not going where you had hoped and is not working out as you dreamed can quickly lead to your happiness and satisfaction falling apart. Leaving you with so much less than you deserve. Depression and anger often follow right behind. Zapping any hope you may have had.

When you realize that you don’t need to be a certain way, or live life as you’ve been told, you can begin to see the value of where you are right now. This then lets you find comfort in and satisfaction with the way life is. You are able to glean joy in the small things that are working. You do need to take the time to explore what you have accomplished, even if only small steps or successes.

Look around yourself. What’s working? What isn’t? What have you completed? Are the people you care about gaining anything from your existence and effort? What can you point at and say, “I did that!” Where are the places that life is good and more than they were? These are just some of the questions you need to be reviewing to find the joy in your life. Just being able to appreciate that things are a bit better can make your life and existence more fulfilling.

When you locate those moments you can begin to see that you are doing well and that life is in fact worthwhile. Not in comparison to others, or where you believe you deserve to be, but in comparison to yourself and where you are right now. Doing this helps you create contentment and can give yourself simple praise for those things you have.

Now, none of this says you can’t want to achieve more or reach a goal outside of where you are at the moment. In fact, you need to be moving towards new things or life will become stale and monochromatic. Time, and the world, does not stand still and you will be swept along as life storms past. You will need to continue to strive and do. But, you need to keep in mind that this does not require you to be someone, or something, other than who you really are. You do not need to meet some goal, or guidelines, that society or social media has manufactured to define you. Because you are not special in context to society, you are just you, you get the opportunity to decide what it is you want to accomplish and when.

Appreciate the simple successes and steps forward you have made. Be content with where you are right now. You will find it much easier to continue forward in life. This thinking creates the freedom to live life as it is, not as you think it should be. Allowing you to actually enjoy it. You will be able to look around, and see and feel how special each moment is. Even if everything is not necessarily good or right. When you can focus outside yourself and understand how this is your existence, you can better see what is important to you, who you care about and where your future is heading. And then you’ll know who, or what, really matters.