I’m feeling kind of antsy right now.

I haven’t really pissed anybody off in a while and I kind of feel like I’m not doing my job right.  I’m here to shake things up and get people thinking in new ways and it’s not supposed to be this easy.  Come on people!  Get mad at me!  What?  You don’t have a reason to feel mad at me?  Well, fine… I’ll give you a reason.

Are you aware of the fact that uniqueness is not an accomplishment?

Uniqueness just is.  It’s not a big deal.

You are unique.  So is everybody.  Whoopty-freaking-do.

Consider the possibility that the real way to celebrate your uniqueness is not to celebrate your uniqueness; it’s to express your gifts to the world.  It’s to find the ways that resonate with you and make you feel good that make the world a better place.

If you’re sitting around congratulating yourself for being unique, you’re not that unique.

Narcissism is common and boring.

Being unique is not an accomplishment.  It’s everyday.  It’s obvious.  It’s ordinary.

Is having feet an accomplishment?  Are you super proud of your feet?  Is it super special that you’ve got feet?  No?  It just is, right?  It’s great that you’ve got feet.  It’s a blessing that, perhaps, gets taken for granted; but, if we are constantly gawking at how amazing it is that we’ve got feet, we don’t get stuff done.  If we don’t get stuff done, we put our physical survival and, potentially, the survival of others at risk.  You’d starve if you didn’t find a way to get food, right?

Pride does have a purpose.  Pride is the reward your brain gives you when you do a good job.  It’s there to keep you motivated.  Sure, it sometimes gets in the way; but, its fundamentally meant to take you forward.  It can take you forward IF you take pride in an accomplishment.  If you take pride in simply being, that’s what we call narcissism.  That’s egotism.  That’s not your friend.  That’s going to keep you stuck and keep you from growing.

Your existence and your uniqueness are God’s accomplishment, not yours.  You’ve already got them.  The only reason to look at them is if you’ve forgotten your own value and need a reminder.  Once you remember, stop staring.  You’re wasting time that you could be spending doing something that makes the world a better place.

Are you so busy celebrating your uniqueness that you’re not actually making a positive contribution?  Have you genuinely improved the world in some way or are you just sitting there congratulating yourself for existing?

Do you think, maybe, the reason that your depression keeps coming back is because you’re not listening to what your mind and body are trying to tell you?  Do you think, perhaps, you feel worthless because you’re not using your potential to the fullest and genuinely doing what you can to take responsibility for improving this world?  Are you, perhaps, ignoring love by celebrating love instead of expressing love?

Go find your own accomplishments.  Go find something to do that’s worth celebrating.  And then, when you’re done celebrating, go find something else.  Keep moving.  Love is energy.  Energy moves.  Light dances, it shines, it sparkles.  It doesn’t just sit there thinking how pretty it is.

Now, there is a lot of value in self love and appreciation.  Self love builds confidence.  It makes it easier to get out of your comfort zone and try new things.  A healthy mind knows the value of self and others.  It’s really good to celebrate accomplishments; both big and small.  It’s good to allow yourself to feel good and let off stress.

But, it’s easy for stress relief, which is a healthy escape, to get out of balance and become hijacked by the fear of stress.  Insecurity can easily hijack stress relief and keep people from making beneficial progress in life.  Escapism can take many forms; but, ultimately, almost all of them lead to the problems that were troubling you in the first place getting worse.

Positive action is a thing to be proud of.  Taking the time and effort to alleviate the suffering of another (or yourself…) is a thing to be proud of.  Working hard and creating something of value that improves someones life is something to be proud of.  Love expressed is always worth celebrating.

Your value is innate, your contributions to the world are not.  You have greatness within you.  Do you want it to stay there?  Or do you want to express it and share it with the world?  If you want to express the greatness within, to grow into your potential for mastery, the keys are love, humility, determination and hard work.

There are countless people who get stuck chasing uniqueness, trying to be different.  You don’t need to try to be different.  You don’t need to try to be unique.  Uniqueness just is.  It’s as natural as breathing.  You can’t avoid it.

The unique way your mind works will effect how you express your gifts and your potential.  It just happens.  It’s inevitable and unavoidable.  If you learn enough, you will put your own spin on what you’ve learned because your mind is unique.  No two people think the same way.  No two people use language the same way.  Only the very best artists can paint two pictures that look identical (and even then, if you look close enough there will be variances.)  Life doesn’t copy exactly.  It just doesn’t.  Everything is always in motion.

So, move on.  Don’t obsess with uniqueness.  There are countless people, especially artists, who get themselves stuck worrying unnecessarily about uniqueness.  Let it go.  It just is.  The more you learn, the more you copy and imitate others, the more different teachers you study with, the more you are naturally going to synthesize all the things that you’ve learned and find your own unique style of doing things.  The path to fully realizing our uniqueness lies through imitation.  Imitation naturally evolves over time into greater uniqueness and individualization.  Life’s weird like that.

Those who obsess with uniqueness block their own progress and get in the way of this natural development process.  They don’t learn enough to know when to break the rules and when to follow them.  The can’t find Mastery; because, they’re stuck in what’s already inside them instead of expanding their consciousness and awareness. (I.E. studying hard and figuring shit out.)

Often, the answers are within us.  Wisdom is simple.  But, skill, that’s freaking complicated.  You’ve got to expose yourself to a lot of information to grasp a skill easily and intuitively.  Study many masters and seek to transcend them all.  The more you study, the more that what you study becomes a part of you, and the more it intuitively flows; but, the key is relentless, often obsessive, pursuit of knowledge and understanding.

Will you choose to express your uniqueness through the love, humility, hard work and diligence that it really takes?  Or will you choose to sit around and congratulate yourself for simply existing?  The choice is yours.

So, are you mad yet?  Please say, “Yes”  Pretty please.