I Thought I Had to Be Special to Do Great Things
Why I stopped using who I was to decide who I could become.
When I was five, my teacher told my mother that in 21 years, she’d never seen a kid do what I had just done.
Years later, I thought I was stupid.
And somehow, I spent even more years wondering whether I was special enough to ever do something great.
Looking back, I think I was asking the wrong question.
Because every time I tried to figure out who I was, the answer changed depending on what had just happened to me.
I’m 5 years old sitting in kinder garden…
all my classmates are playing in class…
I’m getting a little bit bored. Hmm…
I’ll get a piece of paper and just start writing something.
So I draw the number 1…
Then… 2,3,4…
100, 101, 105…
300, 301, 302…
507, 508, 509…
Oh… the whole page has been covered in numbers… I can’t draw anymore.
…
My teacher comes up and starts yelling…
Alexander! What have you done?!
I did something wrong, I can’t hold back my tears…
I start to cry audibly…
Then my mother whose also a teacher comes up to my teacher…
Sorry I didn’t mean to upset him, but in my 21 years as a teacher I’ve never seen anything like it!
My mother starts to laugh…
I’m studying for a test in school, but it’s so incredibly boring…
I wish I could do something fun. Oh well let me just study and get this over with…
…
I can’t do this anymore, I’ll just do the test. How much time has passed?
10 minutes…
Why can’t I study for longer? But I don’t want too, let me go to bed and just watch YouTube shorts and movies.
…
I’m doing the test… and the smart kids are quickly finishing it.
I see one by one how they finish the test early…
Every time I hear another chair be pushed back against the floor…
I look up and think…
How are they so quick? It takes me twice as long to thoroughly go through this…
I’m just not smart like them…
I heard one of them has almost perfect grades across the school, probably will become a doctor…
Yet, I don’t even know what I want to do with my life.
Maybe I’m just too stupid. I can’t even focus or study.
Because, my classmates can study for hours without a break…
I stopped thinking:
I struggle with school.
I started thinking:
I’m not smart.
And that mattered because I thought smart people were the people who did great things.
So if I wasn’t smart...
why would I ever try to do great things?
My mother hears a lovely tune of music downstairs…
She thinks she’s dreaming, she puts on her robe and heads down…
It’s a piano playing?
She sees me practicing on the piano…
Oh my god Alexander. You’re still practicing?!
I look up at her with a smile and tell her I’m almost done…
I’m learning this piece by Yiruma, River Flows in You.
And I just want to get a better grade in music so decided to learn it just by myself…
…
But I look at the clock while my mother is here…
It’s midnight. My mother came home 7 hours ago and saw me practicing…
You’re so smart, Alex!
For once, I believed the words smart about me…
How could I not study for 10 minutes at my desk.
Yet spend 7 hours learning music when nobody really told me too?
…
Looking back, nothing magical happened to my brain that day.
The evidence changed.
…
My teacher looks at the video…
Oh my good Alex, that’s great!
…
I look at my report card at the end of semester.
Music: A
I’m trying to do a class presentation…
I have a really great paper, but…
I’m too shy to really talk this out.
I completely mess up my words. I look down at my paper and not enough at my classmates…
I mess up again, I look up at them…
they’re just staring…
they must think I can’t talk.
…
My parents tell their friends that I’m just a shy and introverted kid and always have been.
They call me shy. And after enough awkward interactions, I start calling myself shy too.
I’m just a shy person. There’s nothing I can do about it…
I think I want a job or life where I don’t have to speak to people.
…
I become a gaming YouTuber and sit inside all day, not talking to anybody. Just to myself into my microphone…
What a lovely job. Now I don’t have to talk to people…
Knock
Son, we should travel to South Africa. You deserve a break!
…Hmm, actually I have been working for a few years now. Let me take a few weeks off.
I’m in a restaurant in this lovely little town, almost no people so should be peaceful…
This older couple comes up, older… but wow, especially the lady just looks so young and happy.
They start looking at the menu, a little bit confused. So I just start talking to them…
Need help with that?
Oh yes thank you, wow what’s your name sir?
…
The sun has set, it’s completely dark outside…
And I’m laughing with the people inside the restaurant and outside.
I go into the bar and people are asking me for my name and where I’m from.
I tell them about Europe and how I enjoy talking to the people here…
Yet, just a few hours before… I thought I would have a good time because there were almost no people I had to talk too…
If I’m naturally someone who doesn’t need people...
why am I enjoying all of this?
I thought identities described me. I didn’t realize they were giving me instructions.
Stupid meant: don’t attempt something intellectual.
Shy meant: avoid people.
Ordinary meant: don’t expect to do anything extraordinary.
Shy became a part of me that told me to live life without interacting with people.
And because of that I never thought I was special… even though my mother repeatedly told me I was, I couldn’t believe her…
so I never attempted anything extraordinary.
How was I ever supposed to know whether I was special?
I look at people younger than me…
People making millions who have lived shorter…
Kids going into the best schools…
A kid younger than me playing the piano better than me…
Someone going to the gym everyday and having a disciplined morning routine.
So many special people…
…
Am I special?
Is there anything in my life I’ve done that’s great?
Let me think…
Maybe the story I wrote the numbers 1-509… but I was just a kid.
School… no.
Physique… no.
Talent… no.
Personality… no.
But I did get an A in music… could maybe become a pianist.
My mother comes home everyday from work with an expression…
her back hurts…
her knees are swollen…
and her doctor tells her she needs to stop working or her condition will get worse…
But we need the money…
Mom. When I’m 18, I promise you never have to work again!
…
What do you want to do in school, Alexander?
I don’t know.. maybe become a computer engineer?
Let me just go for a normal path… I luckily do have good enough grades for it.
But… then I remember… The promise I made to my mother…
Let me focus on that, I’ll just take a year off school. Let me try to earn money like my favorite gaming youtuber. He’s a millionaire playing games. Then I can solve the biggest problem in my life.
…
Instead of doing a think where I think…
What does this say about me?
I start asking…
What does this problem require from me?
YouTube.
Learning.
Trying things.
Failing.
Improving.
Making money.
Continuing.
…
Oh my god you’re a YouTuber! teach me how!
You’re so special… you make that much money?!
Wow, you’re so successful for your age…
At five years old, one experience made someone think I was unusually smart.
Years later, another set of experiences made me think I was stupid.
I was the same person.
The evidence changed...
so the identity changed with it.
And I did the same thing with being shy.
Talented.
Confident.
Successful.
Special.
I spent years collecting evidence to figure out what kind of person I was.
But I never realized that the labels I chose were changing what evidence I would ever get to collect next.
Maybe you’ve been waiting too.
Waiting to know you’re smart enough.
Talented enough.
confident enough.
special enough...
before attempting the thing that could give you completely different evidence about yourself.
Maybe I was special.
Maybe I wasn’t.
I think I wasted years asking the wrong question.
Because I thought I needed to know what I was capable of before I tried to do something great.
But maybe you only find out what you’re capable of by giving yourself something meaningful to do.
I didn’t need proof that I was special.
I needed the chance to find out who I could become.