We live in a world where everyone has someone (or some people) he or she aspire to be like... From music stars, to fashion models, to renowned entrepreneurs, to popular artists, etc., no walk of life is exempted. We can easily picture ourselves on platforms our models have been on, with the cheering crowd, paparazzi hovering over us, fans who consider a picture or an autograph, a huge privilege and so on... This aspiration mostly becomes our fuel and drive for success.
Jeff Bezos (someone who I aspire to be like) said in his 23rd and last shareholder's newsletter as CEO of Amazon, "We all know that distinctiveness- originality- is valuable. We are all taught to "be yourself". The world wants you to be typical-in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don't let it happen."
Now, this is a dilemma. How do we retain our originality while we strive to attain the status of people we aspire to be like? Here's what I think: We have to own our journey. From our first day at school to the thought process that led to choose what we studied in higher institution, from our first injury as a toddler to finding a soulmate, from the first money we saved as a teenager to buying our first car as an adult, every of these experiences is unique and peculiar to us.
Knowing this, we can wonderfully tailor achievements we admire as benchmarks while we stay true to our journey as individuals. Rather than sacrifice our distinctiveness to attain these benchmarks, we embrace and refine ourselves to become better versions of who we are primarily. From our models, we have an idea about what's possible as humans but we should also know these are only benchmarks, never the peak. By embracing our distinctiveness, we will not only meet these benchmarks, we can also become benchmarks for other people.
Thank you for reading.