It is not a new concept anymore to just rest in the moment, thanks to the popularity of Eckhart Tolle. Maybe also Zen. And when we start to rest more and more in the moment, perspectives can shift quite drastically.

One of those perspectives is of how special one is. Undeniably, each one of us is special and unique, although many of the times most of us can’t wrap our heads around this.

The need to be special is almost basic. Just imagine for a moment, that you are dying, at the end of a long, healthy life. A life that was completely ordinary. You were nothing special. You did nothing remarkable. You’re just completely, utterly ordinary. How would that make you feel? If you realised that that was exactly how your end would be, would you want to continue your life as it is?

Ordinary is unacceptable. So unacceptable, in fact, that even parents refuse to accept ordinary children. There is a constant need to prove to themselves and the world that their child is ‘special’, better than others. That all the difficulties they’ve endured to raise this little human being has been worthwhile.

Children are highly intelligent, and very quickly sense that if they aren’t special, their parents might not really want them. We’ve all sensed it. This kicks off a life-long pattern of trying to be special. Some become special positively, through creative pursuits, academic excellence, kindness and similar things. Others become special in the opposite way, through disobedience, aggression and failure. In either case, they are different, special, worth talking about to every guest. Not ordinary. Not boring.

What an illusion this is, and oh, how it destroys us. Look into the mirror, look into your eyes. You’re looking into the eyes of one among 7 billion of your species on one planet. It is like an ant or a bee thinking that there may be many in the nest, but IT is special, unique. And it is. And you and I, we’re just as special as that little snail you might have crushed under your foot on your morning jog. Or that little stone your step on as you get out of your house. Or that drop of water that slides down your umbrella and slips into the drain. Just as special. Not more. Not less.

No two things in nature are identical. You have no duplicate, but then neither does anything else. And if only, if only we could embrace that ordinary-ness and accept the fact that we may be special but we’re also just as ordinary as absolutely everything else, we would realise that ordinary has an incomparable beauty. Every single moment, every single object, every single living being is so full of beauty and wonder, that life cannot possibly be ‘ordinary’ any more.