I’m not special

I had an interview the other day and was asked the daunting question, “What makes you unique?” It took me nearly 3 minutes to come up with a response. In the midst of that 180 seconds I realized something. I’m not special.

I’m a millennial and like all millennials I have grown up with the notion that I’m going places, that the world owes me something. My life is going to be rad just because I was born and I deserve it. Read this Huff Post article and you’ll get the gist of me and about 70 million others.

My parents raised me to believe in hard work, to put in the time and reap the rewards and I did. But, I’m not going to deny that there has always been this part of me that still felt “special.” Or rather that I was bound for something great and anything that didn’t fill me with a profound sense of destiny or was short of leaving my stamp on the world was settling and not worth my time. A mentor of mine once told me that, “We all must pay our dues.” I agreed with him at the time but really just imagined that I would be the exception.

Flash forward four years and there I am juggling the usual vain thoughts — I’m friendly, funny, have leadership sensibilities, I like long walks on the beach, blah, blah, blah. While I am (I think. I hope!) all of these things none of them could possibly sum up how incredibly “special” I am.

Me: Have you ever gotten a really good answer to this question?

Interviewer: Honestly, nothing that really sticks out.

Her comment passed right over me, it was a cheap trick to buy me a few more seconds, and I eventually answered with something equally unremarkable. I still haven’t heard back about the job either and that speaks for itself.

The question and remark stuck with me though. I’ve spent my entire life wanting to be unique, wanting to do only big things, saving my energy and biding my time for the big break that would be my life. Surely someone would look at me one day and just hand me the world. I’ve worked odd and numerous jobs (many of them that I’ve loved) but really I’ve just been waiting, waiting to feel something. Waiting to feel “special.” But when confronted with such a question and the realization that nobody’s prior answer had any bearing, I realized that I’m trying to stand out while still sitting down.

If I could go back and answer her question again this is what I’d say:

“I am unique because I realize that I’m not. There is nothing that sets me so far apart from the rest of the world that I am immune to hard work, to climbing the ladder, to “paying my dues.” But what will, someday, make me unique is the fact that I did it; because unique follows work. Unique is forged. It is not to be waited for, it is to be taken.”

I will be special. I will be unique.