Becoming Extraordinary

What does it take to make a person extraordinary?

It is human nature to want to be important.  We all fantasize about it: waking up from a mundane life to find the fate of the world rests on your shoulders, figuratively or literally.  Just so long as you are imperative.

So what does it mean to be important anyway?  It means being so essential to a person, idea, society, etc. that our presence or influence are absolutely indispensable.  We’ve all seen it on TV or read about it in books.  Occasionally we even learn of a real-life example.  It is a fantasy simply because it is so unlikely.  And we know that.  We dream of it, we don’t actually expect it to come true.

But what if it could?  What if one day we did find that we held the weight of a world in our hands?  Maybe not because we are front line in a revolution or think up the next groundbreaking discovery.  But because of the taken-for-granted things we do and the lives we touch around us.  Maybe those lives won’t depend on you to continue its existence.  But our influence in the world is often much greater than we ever give it credit for.  After all, we’ve all seen movies such as It’s a Wonderful Life where the character is able to witness firsthand what the world would have been like if he had not existed.  But in the dull moment of a normal life it is hard to imagine that our small actions play such a big role.  We easily become discouraged or lose sight of the influence we do have.  It can be very defeating.

So what does it take to make a person extraordinary?  That’s the most amazing part.  The answer is absolutely nothing.  After all, every hero that I know of in an adventure story has made their mark by simply embracing themselves.  Sometimes they may discover new talents or strengths they didn’t know they possessed.  But they don’t make become special by being something different.  In fact, usually what sets them apart is counterintuitively being themselves.  They discover that they were special all along.

It may seem cliché to be told yet again that you must learn to be yourself.  I can see you now rolling your eyes and changing the channel in your mind to something much more exciting.  But why?  Why is it so hard to believe that the ordinary person reading this contains a power in their very being that has the potential to do wonders if they (YOU) would just accept yourself for who and what you are.  Uncover your true potential.

Not to get preachy, but we are all children of God.  And to be a child of the divine is to have divinity in every fiber of your being.  If God can move mountains and command the dead to rise, can you imagine what you can do as an offspring of God?  Imagine the impact you could have on everything you touch and choose to do.  It is unlikely for most us that we will lead nations or command armies.  It is unlikely that we will even become heroes in our own towns.  Honestly, the magic that we make will most often go unnoticed and unappreciated.  But that doesn’t make it any less important.  That’s what we have to remember.  It’s not about the recognition (although we appreciate it when it comes along).  It’s about the results.  And those results are there.  You just have to learn to look.

So, how are you, by virtue of being the person that you are, going to change the world today?