#Trust30 – Most Ordinary

♦ June 27, 2011

#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself.

Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future.

30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey.

Most Ordinary by Patti Digh

We are our most potent at our most ordinary. And yet most of us discount our “ordinary” because it is, well, ordinary. Or so we believe. But my ordinary is not yours. Three things block us from putting down our clever and picking up our ordinary: false comparisons with others (I’m not as good a writer as _____), false expectations of ourselves (I should be on the NYTimes best seller list or not write at all), and false investments in a story (it’s all been written before, I shouldn’t bother). What are your false comparisons? What are your false expectations? What are your false investments in a story? List them. Each keep you from that internal knowing about which Emerson writes. Each keeps you from making your strong offer to the world. Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary.

Once again, let down by a non-sensical Trust 30 post.

This monthly exercise has been great for me to get writing, and get over that fear…but today’s comment is really two separate items.

1) about being ordinary.  <- Which I totally disagree with.  If your writing is ordinary, I won’t read you.  If your guitar playing is ordinary, I’m not going to give you a second lesson.  Life is too short to engage in the mundane.

2) about false expectations.  Now this is good stuff.  In the classic movie “Caddyshack”, Judge Smails (played by Ted Knight) asks Ty Webb (played by Chevy Chase) about he’s been playing…the scene goes like this:

Judge Smails: Ty, what did you shoot today?

Ty: Oh, Judge, I don’t keep score.

Judge Smails: Then how do you measure yourself with other golfers?

Ty: By height.

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