Why You Don't Need to Be Exceptional

it's a rather simple question that quickly gets to the core of someone's sense of well-being and legitimacy did your childhood leave you feeling that you were on balance okay as you were or did you somewhere along the way derive an impression that you needed to be extraordinary in order to deserve a place on the earth and to raise an associated question are you therefore now relaxed about your status or else either a manic overachiever or filled with shame at your so-called mediocrity around 20% of us will be in the uncomfortable cohort alternately refusing to believe that anything could ever be enough or cursing ourselves as failures by which we in essence mean that we have not managed to beat insane statistical odds at school we probably worked very hard not because we were drawn to the topics but because we felt compelled for reasons that were at the time not entirely clear we just knew we had to come close to the top of the class and revise every evening we may not be exceptional right now but we are seldom without an acute sense of pressure to be so in childhood the story might have gone like this a parent needed us to be special by virtue of intelligence looks or popularity in order to shore up a floundering sense of their own self the child needed to achieve and could not therefore just be their own motives and tastes were not part of the picture the parent was privately in pain unable to value themselves battling an unnamed depression furious with the course of their own lives perhaps covertly tortured by a spouse and the child's mission for which there was no option but to volunteer was to make it all somehow better it seems odd to look at achievement through this lens not as the thing that the newspapers tell us it is but very often as a species of mental illness those who put up the skyscrapers write the best-selling books perform on stage or make partner may in fact be the unwell ones whereas the characters who without agony can bear an ordinary life the so-called contented mediocrities may in fact be the emotional superstars the aristocrats of the spirit the captains of the heart the world divides into the privileged who can be ordinary and the Damned compelled to be remarkable the best possible outcome for the latter is to have a breakdown suddenly after years of achievement they can if they're lucky no longer get out of bed they fall into a profound depression they develop all-consuming social anxiety they refuse to eat they babble incoherently they in some way poke a very large stick in the wheels of day-to-day life and are allowed to stay home for a while a breakdown is not merely a random piece of madness or malfunction it can be a very real albeit inarticulate and inconvenient bid for health it is an attempt by one part of our minds to force the other into a process of growth self understanding and self-development which it has hitherto been too coward to undertake if we can put it paradoxically it is an attempt to jumpstart a process of getting well properly well through a stage of falling very ill in an apparently ill State we might cleverly be seeking to destroy all the building blocks of our previous driven yet unhappy careers we may be trying to reduce our commitments and our outgoings we may be trying to throw off the cruel absurdity of other people's expectations our societies that are often unwell at a collective and not just at an individual level are predictably lacking in inspiring images of good enough ordinary lives they tend to associate these with being a loser we imagine that a quiet life is something that only a failed person without options would ever seek we relentlessly identify goodness with being at the centre in the metropolis on the stage we don't like autumn mellowness or the peace that comes once we are past Meridian of our hopes but there is of course no center or rather the center is oneself occasionally an artist will make things that bring such a pathetic wisdom home here is martini capturing the point in the third volume of his essays written a few years before his death towards the end of the 16th century storming a breach conducting an embassy ruling a nation are glittering deeds rebuking laughing buying selling loving hating and living together gently and justly with your household and with yourself not getting slack noble lying yourself is something more remarkable more rare and more difficult whatever people may say such secluded lives sustained in that way duties which are at least as hard and as tense as those of other lives in the late 1650s the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer painted a picture called the little Street that continues to challenge our value system to this day perhaps success might after all be nothing more than a quiet afternoon with the children at home in a modest Street you catch a similar point in certain stories by Chekhov for Raymond Carver in Bob Dylan's time out of mind in Thomas Jones's study of a wall in Naples and in the films of Erik Hamer in particular Lucca affair most movies adverts songs and articles however do not tend to go this way they continually explained to us the appeal of other things sports cars tropical island holidays Fame an exalted destiny first-class air travel and being very very busy the attractions are sometimes perfectly real but the cumulative effect is to instill in us the idea that our own lives must be close to worthless and yet there may be immense skill joy and nobility involved in what we're up to in bringing up a child to be reasonably independent and balanced in maintaining a good enough relationship with a partner over many years despite areas of extreme difficulty in keeping a home in reasonable order in getting a lot of early nights in doing a not very exciting or well job responsibly and cheerfully in listening properly to other people and in general in not succumbing to madness or rage at the paradox and compromises involved in being alive there is already a Treasury to appreciate in our circumstances when we learn to see these without prejudice or self-hatred as we may discover once we are beyond others expectations life's true luxuries might comprise nothing more or less a simplicity quiet friendship are based on vulnerability creativity without an audience love without too much hope or despair hot baths and dried fruits walnuts and a little bit of dark chocolate the school of life is coming to New York from the 4th to the 6th of October for a three-day conference where you'll have the chance to meet other like-minded individuals and embark on a journey of genuine self-discovery and self transformation we hope to see you there

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Keywords: the school of life, schooloflife, education, relationships, alain de botton, philosophy, talk, self, improvement, wellness, mindfullness, psychology, how, to, hack, how to be an exceptional leader, how to be exceptionally intelligent, how to be exceptional at work, why you don't need to fear the future, why you don't need to go to college, exceptional, PL-SELF, 为什么你不需要特殊, Por que você não precisa ser excepcional, Por qué no necesitas ser excepcional

Id: pvgfucVF5cU

Length: 7min 47sec (467 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 24 2019