When you're a child you're repeatedly told how special you are. Parents tell you constantly that you're Mummy's special girl or boy. You emblazon a piece of craft paper with a multicoloured handprint and you are showered with praise. You learn to ride a bike and you earn a hug. You advance beyond your reading years and you are abnormally gifted. You write a mediocre rip off story based on an Aesop's fable and you win a prize. You win a swimming race and you are specially talented. You enter a school competition and win and you are special. You excel at your qualifications and you are tipped for great things. You qualify for university with top marks and you know you are destined for greatness. At university you write a good paper and you believe you will have a splendid career. And then, you emerge into the big wide world as an adult and you are just one of the crowd.
Your dreams of being a world class athlete are shattered by the reality that you are not even top half of your local sports club. At work you do well, but somehow all those kids who struggled to spell when you were streets ahead have all caught up with you. Your natural talent may haul you ahead for a while, but age becomes irrelevant once you are no longer a graduate. Ability is all that counts and when you are competing with a workforce of ages spanning 40 years your best shot at the big time is to leave your employer and climb a different ladder. The best chance you have of being special is winning the weekly pub quiz. It is a hard fact of adulthood that 99% of us are not special. Despite all those years of praise, adulation and endless reminders of just how talented you are, you are destined to just be another office worker. If you're lucky you'll be a manager by the time you're 40.
Somewhere along the line the reality of your own mediocrity hits home. Maybe, just maybe, you'll hit it big by writing a novel in your spare time or inventing an app that takes off. Far more likely you'll just plod on day to day, doing pretty well but nothing special. It is a bitter pill to swallow when it was reinforced in you for so many years that you will be something. Good job you can have your own kids and make believe that you are special for having produced them. Maybe they'll achieve the greatness you never did.
