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One of the most prominent criticisms older generations have of millenials is that we all think we’re God’s gift to humanity because we’re the generation where everybody got a trophy at the end of soccer season. As a result, supposedly, we all go through life thinking we’re special snowflake champions without having won anything.
This is a hilarious criticism for one primary, obvious reason:
WHO GAVE US THE TROPHIES, DIPSHIT?
Who told us we were special little guys, and beautiful princesses worthy of all adoration and attention we received no matter how awful we were at soccer, or as people, or how ugly a princess we would have made? I mean Jesus, imagine the utter gall you must have to leave a gallon of milk out for 5 days, and then to yell at it for being spoiled.
Beyond being stupid because it’s hypocritical, this notion that trophies make kids grow up to feel special for nothing is also just inaccurate. After all, the weirdo kid on the little league team who spent most of the game in right field playing Pokemon also got a trophy, and kids aren’t that dumb. Most of us caught on to the fact that, “Oh, Bradley got a trophy and he eats bugs for nickels, and only seems to throw the ball at squirrels. I guess my trophy doesn’t really mean shit, does it?”
That’s not to say that our generation didn’t have plenty of people telling us we were special and amazing growing up, because we did. But that “You are special” brainwashing has a real uphill battle against all of, well, reality.
Most of us don’t feel special by the time we reach adulthood because our crushes don’t generally like us back, we’re not the astronaut presidents we assumed we would be, and we usually grow up to have the guy the cubicle over constantly forget our name is Therese, not Tessa, god damn it!
Eventually we start to really look at that trophy and think, “Oh…that really didn’t mean anything, did it?”
But are we wrong to feel that way? Let’s revisit that question.
Are You Special?
Note that this isn’t being asked specifically to you. I don’t know you. The question is more so, “Are we all special? Do we crawl out of the womb all covered in placenta and inherent specialness?”
The answer to this is, “technically, yes.”
Fuck yeah! Hooray! You’re special! There is no other you! Throw a party! Start a Youtube channel! Buy a bunch of followers and call yourself an influencer! Jump into a pile of participation trophies while holding a selfie stick! Woo!
After all, this must mean that there is therefore some lucrative job out there that only you can do, some person out there who is perfect for only you–some gosh darn miraculous life destined for only special little you to live!
Right?
Well, no. Not at all. If there were, nobody would be working some lame office job they hated, and everyone would be happy, and constantly high-fiving themselves. Instead, we’re just mostly depressed.
I mean yes, your experiences are technically unique to you. That’s true. But the only ways in which that’s really universally true are in ways that don’t actually matter, and that’s worth remembering.
In other words, yes, there are 88 million different variations in human DNA, and you have your own weird set of those. You have your specific combination of your mom’s eyes, your dad’s jawline, and your grandma’s compulsion to read dumb articles on the internet (evidently).
And sure, your experiences are unique, but not in the way you’re thinking. All that really means is that you are the only person to hear your mom specifically say, “I want toast” in your family’s kitchen on January 12th, 1998.
That’s technically “special” to you. But that doesn’t make you special in the way you were thinking, does it? That doesn’t make you a world-beating superstar, destined for fame and fortune, or in any practical way, different from most of the fungus known as humanity. It just means you have your own, barely distinguishable section of the fungus to yourself.
So sure, you’re technically special. But as it pertains to the real world? In terms of you becoming a superstar? As a default, I think you’re pretty damn unspecial.
“Not me,” you might be thinking. “I’m really smart and creative, and have totally unique ideas. Just watch. The world will see how special I am.” Oh really? Well then here’s a question for you:
What Have You Done?
Even if you have special ideas–even if you have the cure for cancer in your head–if instead of creating it, you’re scrolling through Instagram hos and wading in your own sauna of Cheeto farts, it doesn’t matter how brilliant that cure would be. You’re not special. You’re just an asshole who probably likes to correct people on the internet and wears carpal tunnel gaming gloves.
So here is the good news: you can be special. You can do something nobody else has. You can set a Guiness record for the number of raisins you fit in your mouth, you can get more Instagram likes than all of your friends, and you can have ten, twenty, thirty times the number of cats in your apartment that the health department technically allows.
But here’s the bad news: being special doesn’t inherently make your life better. Being special doesn’t make you happy.
I know you feel like that’s not true. I even feel like it’s not true. Half the reason I’m sharing this with you is because I kind of want to be special because I think it will make me more worthy of existing.
After all, when you grow up constantly being told you’re special, he’s special, the Pope is special, Tom Brady is special, did I mention that you’re our special, special little princess?
When you hear anything get talked about and emphasized constantly like that, you identify it as important. Hear it enough, and it gets lodged deep inside of your monkey brain.
This is the only reason why anybody thinks any celebrity is important.
On some level in our monkey brains, we hear their name mentioned a lot, and eventually that reaches a tipping point until we’re like, “Oh, Kardashians matter.” We’re kind of idiots in this way.
Being Special Matters (Hint: But It Really Doesn’t)
So that’s the real impact of the “You are special” phenomenon. It didn’t make everyone from my generation grow up thinking they were special. But it did make us grow up thinking that being special was extremely fucking important.
That’s why we try to build social media universes around us. That’s why we care so fucking much about being famous. That’s why most of us reach our late twenties, find out we’re not special, and have panic attacks. It’s because we tell kids to enter this cruel, fucked up “Who is really special?” competition that they’re all going to lose.
But what does it even mean to be special? That you studied birds in Madgascar, and nobody else from your high school did? That you’re the best Chinese Checkers player in the midwest? That you have a more toned ass than the other THOTs at the retirement home?
Pardon the obvious here, but regarding all of that, who gives a shit? Does any of this make you happy? Does it help your contribution to the world? Does it make your life “better” or more valuable than anyone else’s just because it’s identifiably different?
Well, no. It just makes idiots think you have a cool Instagram.
Let’s take a step back. Maybe the real problem with telling every kid they’re special isn’t that it’s unearned, but that being special is a shitty thing to prioritize.
Sure the world needs some legitimately special people–the Galileos, the Lincolns, the Ja Rules, etc. We need the dozen or so out of every few billion that really do the one thing that pushes everything else forward.
But even on the literally one-in-a-billion chance that that’s you, if you’re adding something big to the world because you think it makes you special, or because the world will remember your name, you’re an idiot.
Think about it: Charles Darwin will be remembered forever.
But as far as he’s concerned, who gives a shit? He’s been dead for 140 years. He has received no benefit from being special. He does not care right now. Knowing what we know about him, he’s probably more excited to be worm food. Think of all of the dumb ways one can want to be special.
Wanting the person you love to make you happy, and to love you makes sense. Wanting them to make you feel “special” just makes you kind of an insecure loser.
Wanting to go to space because it fascinates you, or because it gives you an amazing universal perspective is valid. Wanting to go because few other people have been makes you a petty weirdo.
Wanting to save the world is good. Wanting to be seen as the world’s savior makes you a douche.
Nothing good comes of the competition to be special. If you lose, you feel like you’ve lost everything, and if you win, you win nothing. Do everything you can to bail on this rat race. It leaves you with shitty priorities and the dumbest broken dreams ever.
We’ve been led to focus on the wrong things here, and it’s making our lives worse. So what should we do instead?
Having a bad priority in your head like, “I want to be special,” inevitably distracts you from any good priority, (like, “I want to help people,” or “I want to be the best damn claims adjuster you’ve ever seen.”) This sucks. We need to change this frame of mind before we waste our lives chasing the most special dragon you’ve ever seen.
So maybe stop trying to be special. Stop telling your kids they’re special. Instead encourage kids (and everyone) to do their absolute best, to do what they enjoy, and we should probably nudge them towards areas that actually help the world.
Instead, accept that you’re probably not special, and that’s totally okay. Try to find what makes you happy, and try to help in whatever way you can. Try really fucking hard to be decent. That’s literally all that matters.
Now, please, for the love of God, share this, and make it the most viral article the internet has ever seen. I need this.
