#Trust30 online initiative - a 30-day writing challenge - Part 25 - Most Ordinary

Most Ordinary by Patti Digh

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are our most potent at our most ordinary. And yet most of us discount our “ordinary” because it is, well, ordinary. Or so we believe. But my ordinary is not yours. Three things block us from putting down our clever and picking up our ordinary: false comparisons with others (I’m not as good a writer as _____), false expectations of ourselves (I should be on the NYTimes best seller list or not write at all), and false investments in a story (it’s all been written before, I shouldn’t bother). What are your false comparisons? What are your false expectations? What are your false investments in a story? List them. Each keep you from that internal knowing about which Emerson writes. Each keeps you from making your strong offer to the world. Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary.

(Author: Patti Digh)

Most Ordinary by Andrew Cairns

False comparisons: not doing as much a rebel as xxx, not as good at smooth-talking as yyy, don't have the energy / drive of zzz.... zzzzzzzzz.
False expectations: to be able to retire and go and live in a big house in the country, to be some big hotshot high-flier career-driven maniac, to make it BIG (or else just continue the daily grind).
False investments: nothing I can do will make much of a difference, if I was going to make it as writer/... (other alternative career) I would have done so by now, we're all just bricks in the wall or cogs in the machine except a few bright sparks / history-changers (and in the long term even they will be forgotten)


You have to live at your own rythmn, make your own choices, take your own risks.