Accepting our ordinary self
— the only way to keep creating.
This is to anyone who feels like me.
To anyone who dreams like me.
Anyone who is so imperfect as I am.
To anyone who wants to make himself extraordinary but isn’t getting the result.
To anyone who gets frustrated because he wants to be extraordrinary or just want to do extraordinary things.
You want to be the next James altucher but it’s so obvious how you presently suck at everything you do.
You wanna write a story that will fill everyone with awe but you realise you don’t have a story to tell. And if you do have a story to tell, you wonder if anyone is ready to listen to your story because you don’t even know how to say it.
You want to achieve that big dream but each time you sit to put in the work (despite Life's challenges), you come to realise it's not getting any easier.
Day by day, you put in the volume of work and realise it seems you are not making any progress at all.
You create, but you are so scared and ashamed to show the world what you have created because you know it is subpar and doesn't make you extraordinary.
And then you wonder, can you ever do this?
You feel you are not capable of creating anything meaningful, capable of adding value to anyone's life
You believe you can only be happy when you do extraordinary things.
If you are like me, then you are hungry to create something extraordinary.
You think this will make you extraordinary and if people think you are extraordinary, you will be commended. And when you are commended, then you will be happy.
But may be we are all just wrong. May be at this stage, we just need to accept the fact that we are ordinary. May be the best we can do is live our lives and put in the volume of work like ordinary people.
May be we just have to stop trying to be extraordinary and accept our ordinary self.
May be the best we can do for now is to accept our imperfection and not beat ourselves up.
May be we should just accept to do everything it takes to become a better ordinary person while on the other hand, we stop expecting too much from our work.
May be then, the extraordinary thing will happen
May be, after a while we will get into the phase of 'flow' and then see ourselves unconsciously putting in the large volume of work required to start creating extraordinary work.
To all the imperfectionist out there, may be all we need to do is sit down, do the work and say no to the perfectionist inside us.
The perfectionist that wants to make us give up.
The prefectionist that feels disappointed at every single thing we create because we are not even close to our 10,000 hours of work yet.
The perfectionist that shatters our awesomeness.
May be we should silence the perfectionist and accept our ordinary self while we produce ordinary things continously until we have put in the volume of work enough to create extraordinary things.
Yes, this is easier said than done but I think this is the only option we have.
This is a better option than beating ourselves up and losing the drive that brought us this far.
I have been trying to write for somedays now but it’s been hard. I try to write 'something' eachday but I feel it’s not well written so I refuse to publish. I feel it’s too ordinary and will equally make me look amateur and ordinary. I don’t want to portray myself as ordinary because this won’t make me happy.
May be I am very wrong and this feeling will only make me feel more unhappy and miserable till I lose the drive to create.
May be the best thing to do is just love myself and the fact that I am (at least) doing the work like an ordinary person. To stop wanting to create the impression that I can be special too.
May be then, I will be able to ignore whatever comes after each piece I create and sit down to put in the amount of work I need to hone this craft.
May be by then, I will be much happier because I will be doing the amount of work required to make me produce something of value to others.
And May be after a while, things will start changing and 'the magic' will happen.
May be, just believing we are ordinary will make us accept life the way it is. Being ordinary will make us expect less from what we create and we will keep working until we become better at our crafts.
May be we can only create extraordinary things when we accept and stay happy with our ordinary self.
May be! Just May be!
