I'm Not Exciting

And I'm going to have to come to terms with it.

I've spent my morning reading the archives on Chris Guillebeau's amazing Art of Non-Conformity blog, something that always gets me inspired. Today, though, it led me to one inescapable conclusion: I am not exciting, not special, not doing anything amazing with my life.

I'm serious here. I've always imagined myself as a world-changer, a future literary icon just minutes away from the book of the century, but let's look at the facts. I work a food service job and take classes at community college. On the weekends, I do housework and sleep. I'm not doing art, I'm not giving anything to the world -- I'm doing exactly what millions of other slightly directionless twenty-somethings do.

I think a key step in the maturity process is recognizing this. "Hey, guess what, Einstein," says the world, "you're not the center of the universe, and just thinking you should be special doesn't magically make you that way. What are you going to do about it?"

That question is the key to who you're going to become as an adult. If you're not the magical child prodigy you always thought you were, what are you going to do about it? Give up and continue on the path of ordinariness, or . . . ?

I don't know what I'm going to do about it. Chris says the two most important questions are "What do you really want to get out of life?" and "What can you offer the world that no one else can?" I'm going to think about that for a while, and I'll get back to you.

In the meantime, what are you going to do about it? Or, if you already did something, how's that working out for you?