The Average Person's Life Sucks
By Kevin Howell
“I’m trying to live a life that’s simple, yet extraordinary.”
That’s
one of the phrases posted on my Facebook profile. I thought of it
myself, and thought it sounded pretty cool. Initially I posted it to
make myself seem somewhat philosophical and pique the interest of “my
friends.” That’s what Facebook is for, right? To make ourselves
seem more interesting than we actually are.
Since
Facebook switched to the Twitter-like status updates, my newsfeed has
been full of meaningless and mundane updates from 200 or so
“friends.” People feel the need to tell you stuff like: “Just got
off work, headed to the gym.” Thanks for the personal GPS update, but I
don’t need to keep tabs on your locale. Or: “Making chicken parm for
dinner, the family loves it.” Well, unless you’re saving a plate for
me, you could have kept that to yourself as well. I share some of the
blame because I actually scroll through and read almost every
irrelevant status, thinking I may come across something significant.
However, that’s rarely the case. All these status updates from social
networking sites have confirmed one thing for me: we live boring lives.
Think
about it. Now that you get hour-by-hour or even minute-by-minute
updates on your friends/acquaintances/colleagues, you realize their
lives really aren’t that interesting. Now of course this isn’t the case
with everyone, but I believe it’s the majority. Even if we are involved
in so-called exciting activities — go on great vacations, party it up
every weekend, rub shoulders with politicians and celebrities, or have
all the latest gadgets — we are still living average lives. And there’s
nothing exciting about average.
One of my favorite writers,
best-selling author Donald Miller, recently released a new book, A
Million Miles in a Thousand Years, in which he chronicles how his life
has changed since a couple of screenwriters began the process of
writing a movie based on his personal memoir. Miller explains how the
writers had to fictionalize several parts of his life in order to make
the script more interesting. Humbled, he realized his life was pretty
boring and decided to make some changes to abandon the mundane. He
didn’t go skydiving, he didn’t travel the world, he didn’t sell all of
his assets, give the money to an orphanage, and live off scraps. He
simply realized that his life needed an ambition, a purpose to pursue.
It needed something bigger than himself to be of any significance.
I
believe a life of significance is something we all can pursue. It’s
rather simple. The first step is simply changing our mind-set and
realizing life is not about us. Seriously, the reason our lives lack
excitement and significance is because we’re self-centered. It doesn’t
mean you’re narcissistic, it just means you’re human. It’s natural to
seek to fulfill your own needs and wants first. It’s a common pursuit.
However common people don’t live interesting lives; they don’t make
much of a difference.
I’ve fallen victim to the same tendency. I
make decisions that reinforce my own comfort and contentment. As a
result, for the most part I live a pretty boring life. If my pursuit of
happiness is an isolated venture, where I’m the only character that
matters on the quest, then it’s bound to be boring. However, if my
primary ambition is to make someone else’s life better and enhance
his/her journey, then I’ve begun an extraordinary adventure, one where
purpose is pursued rather than mere happiness.
In order to do
that, though, we have to sincerely care about others as much as we care
about ourselves. This is a task in itself; however, those actions yield
an incomparable sense of fulfillment, a sense of purpose.
Jesus
knew what He was doing when He mentioned that “love your neighbor”
thing. More than a commandment, He issued a challenge that could
revolutionize our lives as well as the lives of others. It’s an
invitation to abandon our average, self-centered existence, and embrace
a life of significance.
Kevin is still on the journey from selfish to selfless. You can connect with him at Kevin@transparencymag.com.
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