Since the time I was roughly six years old, I was told the famous line, "You can be anything you set your mind to!" Day in and day out, I believed that. I pursued my dreams tirelessly, took extra circulars, made friends, tried new adventures, and couldn't even count the number of times I had been told I could be anything.
When I was eighteen, I was convinced the world was my oyster and with a few swift moves and some linear progress, I would become something extraordinary. After all, that's the American dream, right? Work hard, play harder? At least, that's what I had planned for, in fact, that was literally all I had planned for in my future.
I didn't, and quite honestly, still don't have my future pinned down yet. While I'm sure with time I will discover what exactly it is I want to do or be, I can't help but fight one sneaking suspicion.
What if, I'm just painfully average?
After all, not everyone can be a C.E.O, millionaire, or break the next big story - can we?
This thought first crossed my mind when I failed my first college exam, something I was alarmingly unfamiliar with.
The thought crossed my mind at my first major change.
My second major change.
The thought even crosses my mind when I roll over in the mornings, what if I have nothing to give?
For a while, this thought was scary and earth-shattering. If I wasn't good at college, was I good at anything? After all, my only life plan was to be extraordinary.
Before I let my thoughts get too dark and twisty I realized one very important thing, maybe average isn't the end of the world.
Now I'm stating that we aren't capable of some sort of greatness. Just perhaps, this season of life is our average, and just over the next horizon is our extraordinary chapter.
Sometimes we get so wrapped into sprinting through our journey's straight into our successes, that we rarely realize the importance of the average moments.
For me, average doesn't mean failing tests and letting that be the finale of my story, for me, average means humbling myself and studying harder, and learning more. Where one person shines like a star, another might twinkle dimly.
Those late teens and early twenty years are some of the scariest, and its certainly easy to believe that our destinies and dreams are irrelevant and minuscule, but the best thing is, we're never alone.
My favorite quote comes from Norman Vincent Peale, "Shoot for the moon if you miss you'll land among the stars." This quote reminds me that no matter how you shoot, as long as you're applying yourself daily, you're bound to accomplish something great.
After all, failure is a mindset. It is simply a challenge to overcome and conquer. Next time you feel inherently average, consider what challenge you're failures present, and keep working towards your next chapter - it might just be extraordinary.
