Aim to be Unremarkable in 2024
I had a chest x-ray the other day.
The past few years I’ve become increasingly aware of a sensitive spot where my ribs and sternum meet, right on the breastbone. Pressing on the area with my fingers elicits an acute pain – like a gnarled, gray, musket round somehow lodged itself there atop a nest of nerves.
Each year during my annual physical, I mention this issue to my primary care doctor. He consistently says it’s nothing to worry about.
But this year, I wanted to know for sure. This year, I requested an x-ray.
Before we go any further, I wonder where you fall on the hypochondriac spectrum?
I exist on whichever end of the spectrum it is where one might rehearse the speech one plans to deliver to one’s wife and family when they find out they have terminal sternum cancer.
I’m the guy who imagines the entire fateful scene playing out: My doctor casually picks up the x-rays and immediately does a double-take, staring in shock. Then, before he calls to deliver the news, he stands alone for a moment in some beige, fluorescent-lit hospital hallway, shaking his head and saying to himself, “I should have listened to Reagan about the sternum cancer. He knew better than me.”
Now that’s out of the way, you can imagine my level of anxiety when it took three days to receive the fateful results. To make it worse, they didn’t even bother to call me – some nameless x-ray tech simply uploads a comment to my patient portal on my physician’s website.
And this comment, for which I waited three fearful days, consists of only one word:
Unremarkable.
At first, my feelings are hurt. I don't want to be associated with that word.
The word unremarkable means regular, normal, plain, ordinary – not work remarking on.
But I soon realize, in the case of my sternum, unremarkable means I’ll live to see another day. Unremarkable means I still might visit Australia and it’s OK that I haven’t created my last will and testament. Unremarkable means my wife and I may yet have a family.
As I repeat the word aloud a few times through pursed lips, a deep breath finally finds its way into my lungs and I feel grateful for being – unremarkable – for the first time in my life.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent your life hoping to be someone worth remarking on. Not the opposite.
Who wants to be unremarkable? Who wants to be skipped past, thumbed through, scanned over?
Not me, at least not up until now. For as long as I can remember, I’ve believed a well-lived life garners remarks. Remarks about how unique, overly qualified or specially skilled one might be.
Reflecting on my unremarkable x-ray results, I wonder if my hypochondriacal fears aren’t the only misguided belief worth attending to here.
What if the desire to be remarkable has kept me from the freedom and peace that come with accepting the gift of being unremarkable - which is, I suppose, an acceptance one is simply a regular human living a regular life?
Perhaps the true path to growth doesn't involve our pursuit of being remarkable, but instead a release of the belief we should ever be anything but a regular human trying to grow a little more each day? I'm learning that daily growth looks less like being remarkable and more like shifting the way we see the world.
If you're anything like me, you tend to see the world through one (or more) of the following lenses:
The lens of Qualification: Do I have the knowledge or skills?
The lens of Fear: What do others think of me?
The lens of Comparison: Am I on track? Am I doing well?
The lens of Lack: Do I have anything of value to contribute?
What's implied in all the lenses above is that there could (and should) be a world where we:
Possess all of the knowledge and skills (Qualification)
Impress anyone and everyone, garnering no criticism (Free of Fear)
Correctly navigate our lives and careers (Free of Comparison)
Maintain a belief that we have what it takes (Confident)
I don't know anyone who has actually managed to be remarkably qualified, free of fear and comparison, and unshakably confident on a consistent basis. I'm not just talking about my friends, I'm talking about any artist, athlete or influential person whose story I've followed or biography I've read.
In fact, I'd argue most folks we admire and describe as being "remarkable" didn't get there by fighting to be remarkable. Instead, I'm convinced they relaxed into the truth that we are all finite beings with finite time on this earth, and accepted that no one is imbued with special powers at birth.
What's remarkable is when a regular, unremarkable, human chooses to be as good of an unremarkable human as they can - over time. It is in one's belief that they are no better or no worse than anyone else that one finds freedom to make regular contributions work remarking on.
So maybe you're not where you feel like you should be at this point in your life. I worry about this all the time. Maybe you think your unremarkable job and unremarkable relationships mean you've done something wrong and you're doomed to live a painfully normal life.
Well, as we wrap up this year and many of us try to measure ourselves, what if instead of measuring your worth by how remarkable you believe yourself to be, you asked yourself how good of a job you did being a regular, unremarkable human.
Did you show up for work? Did you care for your friends and family? Did you try (even just a little) to eat better and exercise? Did you pay toll bills and replace air conditioning filters and return packages from Amazon?
I'm betting you did as good of a job as you could've. Just like everyone else. No better, no worse. Just normal.
We can talk about goals and growth and pushing ourselves another time. For this newsletter, to wrap up this year, I hope you'll simply join me in celebrating our shared unremarkable-ness.
What a gift it is to accept that we can be humans with nothing to prove. I hope you'll accept the gift of being unremarkable this holiday season.
