Ok..here’s why technology is great. 

I wrote a whole post, and then while attempting to cut and paste it, found my Microsoft word freezing. I couldn’t save, couldn’t do anything than try to do a quick screen grab of what was visible. You can see below. 

 All the copy I could salvage before it crashed

This is one of those situations where I can throw a fit and give up, or just do my best to recreate what I was writing about and hope that the original intent stays put. There’s a lesson in here about writing, which is that sometimes you have to just roll with it.

The bigger lesson is to hit the damn Save button. 

But i digress. 

The purpose of this intent was inspired by a conversation with the charming Mrs. Renegade. 

And it goes like this: 

I firmly believe that what prevents many people from stepping into their greatness and purpose is the fact they compare whatever it is they have done or want to do with EVERYONE who has come before them. 

For every new writer out there with something to say, they compare themselves to the Salingers, Vonneguts, Twains, or Seth Godins.

Every filmmaker tries to compare themselves to Coppola, Cameron, or even Kevin Smith.

Entrepreneurs aspire to be the next Steve Jobs or Richard Branson. 

Knowing all of these giants are out there is enough to scare people into never even wanting to leave the starting gate. 

Common wisdom to fight these fears is to acknowledge that everyone of these people had to start somewhere. Vonnegut wasn’t always Vonnegut. For most of his life he was a sociology and writing teacher. I’m sure for part of Branson’s life he might have been Dicky Branson. 

So yeah, we have to start somewhere. 

But i’m here to offer another way to think about the fact that all people, no matter how successful, are still people. And that’s by recognizing that everyone, rich, poor, famous or a nobody, poops. They all sleep too. 

I’m dead serious. Everyone poops. Everyone sleeps. 

And everyone, at the end of the day, is just another human being on this planet. 

Just because someone has “Made it” doesn’t mean they don’t struggle with the same problems that everyday people do. It’s why I always laugh when Us Weekly does their “They’re just like us” feature (in my defense, I only know of this because in the summers when we go away, my wife indulges in tabloid magazines. I swear!)

This needs no captionSo next time you tell yourself that you can’t achieve what someone else has done, remember that they use the toilet just like you do. (Now, maybe the super-rich and successful have some kind of super cool toilet with butt warmers and a massaging lid, but that’s another story). 

It might sound crude, but it might just help level the playing field in your mind. 

Curious to hear if anyone else has ways of keeping perspective and realizing that in the end, we’re all the same. 

As a bonus, to help you keep perspective, i’ve included a video of Wayne Newton sleeping.