Only Human

Carrying on from what I touched on yesterday, I've recently begun to realise that no matter how special or unique people appear to be, at the end of the day they're all just human. From parents to bosses, celebrities to politicians, rich folk and leaders: they all have exactly the same issues, personality traits and flaws that the rest of us do.

They all have birthdays, they all have to eat and they all have to poo. Many have found it hard to make friends or break the ice with strangers at one point. They've all had man/woman trouble of some kind, and none of them get along with everyone. They all make mistakes, and have at some point made wrong decisions. We often come from the same place, and like everyone else when they go home they cease to be famous - we can check Big Brother for a pretty striking demonstration of this.

As impressive as they can be, they can be just as disappointing. In fact it's quite disheartening when you see someone in the limelight falling off that pedestal the rest of us have (possibly unfairly) placed them upon. But then this feeling turns into something more positive; a realisation that there really isn't much separating them from the just-as-regular us on the street.

The point is that special people are all just as special as the rest of us are. The only real difference that I can think of is that they've managed to exploit their potential - a potential that we all each have. And this ability to exploit or develop potential isn't unique in itself; it can be learned or helped with by oneself or others.

Another implication is that any human "failings" that you think that you have do not place you out of the reach of success or achievement. The fact that there are people (who are all imperfect by definition) around us doing well is proof that one doesn't have to be perfect themselves in order to do good things.

But none of this will happen unless you really want it to, and it's often the case that the biggest barrier to better things is a simple yet powerful lack of self belief. But if anything, those who have reached that point already should be seen as reflection of what the rest of us are capable of and the success of others should inspire rather than depress us. We should be thinking of what we are capable of rather than continually comparing ourselves with the artificial them all the time.