Describing exceptional people.
People say that some people are just outliers.
They were gifted with special genes that allow them to do whatever they do.
They were lucky enough to be born where they were born, and live in the zip code they lived in—that’s how they got where they are today.
They had opportunities you and I do not have access to.
So it’s not your fault. Don’t feel bad. It’s okay that you don’t have what they have.
It makes me feel good…
What does this make me feel like?
First of all it feels relieving.
It feels relieving because the reality is, the gap between my dreams and ambitions vs my current life is as wide as the Grand Canyon—and it removes some of the pressure I’ve put on myself. Sigh!
…and it also makes me feel dead inside.
But the downside to this kind of talk also makes me not want to try.
It makes me doubt myself even more—can I really do this? Am I special enough? Do I have the outlier gene? Would I just be being delusional if I thought I could build a dream life? And even if I go after and make it, will I even get any of the credit? Will anyone know how incredibly fucking hard it was? Or will I just be lumped in with everyone else that I’m just special or one of that outliers?
Fuck that. All of it.
Yes, right now by all intents and purposes, I’m a nobody. I don’t say that as a self-harm move. I say that as a statement of fact. The question simply is, what am I going to do about it?
So I’ve gotten a shitty hand. And…?
Yes. It is true that someone probably was dealt a better hand than me. But what does “a better hand” even mean?
What’s a story without struggle?
What’s a story without adversity?
What’s a story without unexpected craziness?
What’s a story without hitting into obstacles, then overcoming?
At the end of the day, I don’t know if it’s opportunity or obstacles that are the real advantages in life.
The advantage no one can take from me.
What I do know, though, is no matter where I’ve come from, no matter what I might have fallen victim to, I hold the pen in my hand right now to my life’s story.
This pen welds the power of the plot twist. And I can decide what I want my plot twist to be.
Or…I could just live the rest of my life, as Henry David Thoreau said, leading a life of quiet desperation. The end of that story is quite predictable—it either ends in regret, or me spending my time justifying to myself and others why I wasn’t able to create the life that was burning inside of me, begging to be expressed.
Both of those endings suck. I don’t want to live that kind of life.
