Ordinary World

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.

This is a funny prompt from Patti Digh, gentle readers. It's funny because your MatchGirl always sees herself as ordinary. There is nothing particularly special or extraordinary about me. Certainly not. I'm smarter than some, less smart than others. I'm prettier than some, not as pretty as others. I'm a girl like any other, at the same time I am uniquely me.


I can't imagine being any way other than I am. Nor would I want to.


But I'm just a normal girl. An ordinary person. No better and no worse than anyone else out there. What I have accomplished, others can, too. The projects I have going on, they come from my heart and I'm excited to have them, to own them, to share them. But they don't mean that I am anything more or less than anyone else. I'm just doing my best to keep moving - forward, up, ahead - and to bring everyone I meet along with me.