✍🏼 Are you willing to pay the price of extraordinary?
✍🏼 Are you willing to pay the price of extraordinary?
An extraordinary life requires a non-ordinary path
Welcome back to The Comma Project, a place for leaders and seekers.
Here, you and I ask the questions that matter.
Comma is a window into the story of one human’s pursuit of more aliveness and crafting a life of significance. It’s an offering of perspective, connection, and perhaps even some wisdom sprinkled in.
It’s where you and I are in the process - of seeking, and becoming - together.
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Cheers,
Devin
Are you willing to pay the price of extraordinary?
At your birth a seed is planted.
That seed is your uniqueness.
It wants to grow, transform itself, and flower to its full potential. It has a natural, assertive energy to it.
Your Life’s Task is to bring that seed to flower, to express your uniqueness through your work.
— Robert Greene in Mastery
The more I’ve sat with this idea, the more I’ve come to uncover and believe that it has some vital energy to it. It stirs a vitality and a vibrancy in my heart-stomach. To look towards an expansive flowering, a full and authentic expression of myself, feels bright, hopeful, rich, and beautiful.
Extraordinary.
But it also brings an ominous sense of foreboding. A measure of disquieting anxiety - fear, in truth - associated with the vulnerability of bringing my full uniqueness to bear.
In particular, it’s the idea that true flourishing comes not from what’s safe and conventional, but in fact from the parts of us that are the least conventional, most different, and unique. That’s the scary part.
I am beyond certain that I want an extraordinary life of deep presence, full realization of my potential, and rich, vibrant expression.
The vision is beautiful. Simple.
Yet the part that I’m toiling with is the journey required to get there.
No risk, no reward, right?
Extra-ordinary, above-normal, non-conventional
At first, it seems a bit counterintuitive that an extraordinary life requires being different than the norm, especially because we have so many things that are dependably widely and publicly celebrated: the famous pop star; the visionary entrepreneur; the ingenious artist; the wealthy doctor/lawyer/banker/consultant; the prominent thought leader/influencer.
But when we look at the word itself (extra + ordinary = above-normal), we can see the true spirit of what it would mean to live a life that way, as Robert Greene does in Mastery.
It’s as simple as this: to live an extraordinary life demands being extra-ordinary. Above-normal. Non-conventional.
Unique. Fully ourselves.
To do normal things is to become normal.
I love this idea that the “seed” that we must cultivate and express is our uniqueness.
Not our talent - the things at which we’re naturally proficient.
Not even our passion per se - the things we enjoy or are enthusiastic about.
And certainly not what our culture celebrates.
But our uniqueness. The parts of us that make us who we are. The parts distinct, or set apart, from all others.
In fact, I believe our uniqueness is what give us soul. It’s what makes our imperfect humanity rich and beautiful.
That doesn’t mean that what makes us unique can’t also be what we’re talented at, or passionate about, or win us public recognition. It’s just that if we turn away from our uniqueness to cultivate these things, we run the risk of doing so at our own expense, leaving parts of ourselves behind, and feeling incomplete and unsettled.
In fact, what I’m coming to believe is that in cultivating the seed of our uniqueness, we stand perhaps an even better chance of moving towards other things like talent, passion, and recognition. I think it is in fact possible to get them all.
It’s just that it’s a journey to get there. And we can’t count on it. And there’s a cost.
The real question: are you willing to pay the price of extraordinary?
If I want an extraordinary life, I now realize that the real question I must ask myself is whether I’m willing to pay the price.
Am I willing to pay the tax of my uniqueness? Am I willing to risk not only embracing, but leading with what makes me most myself and different? Am I willing to tolerate feeling misunderstood, lost, and alone, with no pre-existing map to follow?
Am I willing to risk the potential for conventional measures of success to bring that seed of uniqueness to flower? Am I willing to forego more dependable paths to money and status?
Or am I willing to pay a different sort of cost: jettisoning parts of me to be accepted, understood, and rewarded by others?
The truth is that it is a choice.
A while back, I realized that I had made the wrong one. I had it backward.
I was seeking a conventionally accomplished life - one of excellence and achievement. But after walking that path for a while, the cost of doing so became too great. I came to see that it wasn’t working for me. I felt unfulfilled and empty. I left some vital parts of me untended. In fact, at times, it felt as if I was actually punished for bringing those most unique, essential parts of myself to bear.
I now realize that what I’m truly seeking isn’t an accomplished life, but an extraordinary one.
It doesn’t mean that it’s devoid of excellence and achievement. In fact, I still do desire these things. But it means that first, above accomplishment, I’m seeking a life that’s fully mine.
Instead of solving for accomplishment, I’m now solving for aliveness.
So now, I’ll put it to you.
Are you seeking an extraordinary life - one that’s fully yours? Or simply an accomplished one?
Are you solving for accomplishment or aliveness?
Are you willing to pay the price of the journey to extraordinary?
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