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Twitter and Facebook are full of inspirational quotes on a daily basis.  Half the time there is no knowing whether they are real or not or even who the hell the person cited with saying them actually was.  And sometimes I find them rather sinister.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I love an inspiring quote as much as the next person and have a stream of personal favourites all over my Pinterest account.

But.

There is a pushiness to many of them, a sense of “you should be doing better”, a feeling of “why haven’t you changed the world yet?”.  A constant nagging that we are missing something vital by living our everyday lives.

And I would like to suggest something radical to you all readers.

You really don’t have to be remarkable if you don’t want to be.

Not everyone can change the world (Jeez how many times does it need changing anyway?), not everyone needs to make a million or feed the starving. Not everyone can leave a legacy (at least not one that will be remembered by people other than close friends and family).

For the world to function it needs ordinary people like you and me, making ordinary money, doing ordinary things. Fixing computers, typing up contracts, waiting tables, righting people’s calf muscles. As Tara Gentile said in her newsletter last week it’s not “about everyone quitting organizational employment to work for themselves”. It’s about finding out what rocks your boat and just enjoying that.

There are people in the world who’s main priority is feeding their children and my inner critic (and unreliable quotes on the internet) keeps telling me I should be changing the world.

Pfffttttt….

It’s OK to be ordinary because in your ordinariness you are extraordinary. We all are, just by being right here in the present moment, by breathing, by seeing, hearing, talking. You’re amazing and you don’t have to chase rainbows or pots of gold for that. You’re very existence on the planet, your unique combination of bone and sinew and DNA spirals, the fact that nobody ever has or ever will have a fingerprint the same as yours…..that right there, that’s your legacy.

You just need to be as content as you can.  Smile as often as possible.  Keep breathing.  Jump up and down once a day.  Just that will make you special.  And we can only achieve that if we are happy with who we are right now, rather than who we have the potential to become.

My own personal favourite inspirational quote is this one from my dear Oscar Wilde

“Be yourself; everyone else is taken“

So just be.

Doing is very often overrated anyway

(Oh, and if you’d like a good quote about legacy here is one from my favourite Ancient Greek Tyrant)

We’ll be drawing the winners of the giveaway later today and the results will be up tomorrow morning!

And in our world of plenty
We can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world
At Christmastime.
Bob Geldof and Midge Ure

And So This Is Christmas;
And What Have We Done?
Another Year Over; A New One Just Begun;
And So Happy Christmas;
I Hope You Have Fun;
The Near And The Dear Ones;
The Old And The Young.
John Lennon

“God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all
Charles Dickens

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(image via weheartit.com)

“True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice.”
- Samuel Johnson