My circle of friends and acquaintances is large and varied. I know some people who have amazing lives. They make huge contributions to society. They have wonderful stories to tell, full of fascinating details that draw their listeners in. But one or two of these people are a little grandiose; their stories feel embellished and they seem to be telling them to make themselves appear better than the rest of us. They have travelled to more places than the rest of us, stayed in better hotels, met more celebrities and had bigger adventures. When you tell a story they have to at least one-up you. They can’t help themselves because they are either so self-involved that everything has to be about them, or they are so insecure that they have to take every chance they get to bolster their faltering self-image. I suspect the former is more often the case.

But I don’t really want to talk about them. I want to talk about people who live little lives like most of us do. Most of us will never be famous. We won’t have schools or hospital wings named after us. We won’t become Olympic athletes, or play in the big leagues. We live small lives that will never be turned into movies of the week or best-selling books.  By definition, most of us are average. The bell curve has the few famous and accomplished on one end, the few infamous and dastardly on the other, with the rest of us falling somewhere in between. While that means that the world doesn’t have many Einsteins or Mandelas, it also means that the Trumps and Kardashians are also few and far between.

So why is being average bad? At what point did we decide that just living our lives wasn’t enough? Why do we have to all be movers and shakers and change the world? Because you know, that’s just way too much pressure for me. And I think it’s too much for most of us. We have enough pressure just making a living, raising moral, responsible and independent children and trying to be faithful to the important truths we all hold.

There is nothing wrong with living a “little” life and as I write that in my head I am using my hands to indicate air quotes. We need to stop thinking of our lives as social media posts that need to get millions of likes. We little people make small ripples as we live our small, insignificant lives that extend out from us and could possibly make world-wide changes. We’ve all heard the stories about how someone got a smile from a stranger that stopped them from doing something horrible. One small ripple. From an ordinary person. Some kids organize a nationwide movement after their little lives are blown up. Several small ripples merge into a tsunami. See where I’m going?

So when I’m sitting listening to that person who has to tell me how important and funny and smart and everything they are, I’ll just smile and let them. I can’t compete so I’m not going to even try. I’m confident that my little life is sending out ripples. And that’s enough for me.