When we start out in life, we are curious, daring risk-takers. But over time, with the guidance of our fearful parents and the faithful, diminishing effects of education, we get in line. We finally see our lives as something small and insignificant. We’re a customer, a number, a name, a statistic; someone to feed the machine.
We’ve lived that way so long that we wind up at mediocrity. Mediocrity isn’t just half measures or lack of commitment. Mediocrity is a world view. What it basically says is, “What I do doesn’t really matter so why does it matter how I do it? My marriage doesn’t matter. It’ll wind up a statistic. My children don’t matter. No matter what I do, they’ll wind up hating me. God doesn’t matter because no one really knows if there is a God or what He’s like. And if He’s like a lot of the religious people I’ve ever met, I think I’ll pass.”
Here is my call to all of my fellow renegades out there who have gone into hiding. Come out, come out, wherever you are. Let your light shine. That’s what Jesus said. We’re light and salt, that people are to see our good works and realize that something bigger, bolder, and more daring is at work in our lives. How can they do that if they live small, mission-less, passionless, beige lives?
One of the best things you can do for yourself during the 21st Century and the transition of the new economy, while house prices are low and unemployment is high, is to change your core belief; that one life matters and it can change the world. Think of the names of ordinary people: Martin Luther King, Jr., Bill Gates, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Babe Ruth, Bart Starr. I know, I am wandering, but you get the point. Names of people who have stood out from the crowd: that could be you. You can live a life that is memorable, that is truly amazing.
Amazing people do amazing things. Average people do average things. You know, average, broke, sick, addicted, miserable, lonely, angry – you get it. Amazing, happy, joyful, energetic, on mission, making tons of money, giving tons of money away: that can be you. But you have to believe fundamentally, at your core, that you can change the world.