There’s something I’ve been wrestling with lately, and I’m not sure I have answers. Maybe you don’t either, but I wanted to sit with it out loud.
You know, when you’re younger, the idea of being ordinary feels like a kind of failure. You’re supposed to be exceptional—to do something remarkable, to stand out, to matter in some big, visible way. And I bought into that for a long time. I think most of us do.
But somewhere in the middle of living, something shifted for me. Maybe it was getting a year older. Maybe it was just paying attention long enough to notice that the people I admired most weren’t the ones chasing the spotlight. They were the ones who showed up. Who kept their word. Who listened when you needed someone to listen. Who did their work well, without needing credit for it.
I started wondering: what if ordinariness isn’t a consolation prize? What if it’s actually harder to achieve than exceptionalism? Because being ordinary—genuinely, honestly ordinary—means you’ve given up the fantasy of special treatment. It means you’re willing to just be good at what you do and let it be enough.
The trouble is, we live in a time that’s obsessed with the exceptional. Your social media feed shows you the extraordinary. Your news cycles chase the dramatic. The everyday, the quiet work, the person who gets on with their job without needing to announce it—that goes unnoticed. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s even the point.
I think about the ordinary life as something you have to choose. Not settle for—choose. You have to actively let go of the idea that you should be famous, or brilliant, or different in some way that matters to strangers. And then you have to pour that energy into something else. Into the people you love. Into work that feels true. Into becoming the kind of person you actually want to know.
That’s not small. That’s everything.
Are you still chasing the exceptional thing?
Until next time — keep wondering.