Lisa Nichols said: “You just want to make me extraordinary because it lets you off the hook”.

What a practical, convenient and sinister side of admiration – divinifying some in order to feel more comfortable among the many – relieved of the responsibility to try because he/she just has “a natural gift”, “is smarter”, “more capable” “comes from a different background”, “got lucky”, “had some breaks”… What if you’re making up their background story? What if they had none of that and still made it? What if they were just like you? What will your excuse be then? We all got here with the same basic blueprint and share so much, yet some move past the initial basic programing to the 2.0 versions, to a life in higher resolution adapted to their own convictions. Some stay unchanged and invest this energy into excuses and rationalization because it is the easy way out. Just admiration requires nothing of you than an empty gesture of saying it. It allows you to stay safe and undisturbed in your comforts.

You might succeed or not, you might get all you want and need or nothing at all, you might get it and lose it only to get it once more or never again… Life is long and all combinations are possible, but not if you don’t try and use the admiration as motivation. Try whatever it is you feel inside that needs to be tried! What nobler purpose can you imagine for this life than trying to be better and leave it a bit kinder than it would have been were you not here. Build stuff, don’t wreck it. You don’t get to weasel out of this so easy. You don’t get to wiggle of the hook of responsibility. Everything you are, the relationships you have, the body you have, your emotional and mental wellbeing, everything you say, do, love and are building is your responsibility, no one else’s. You don’t get to hide behind someone’s greatness. You don’t get to walk away backwards smiling and applauding. You get to be humble enough to sit by their feet and learn. You don’t get to stick a label “special” on people so you can feel better while you’re fusing to the couch watching soaps covered in Cheetos dust. You don’t get to hide from the world, you get to live.

Your best try, with who you are now and what you know, might not be enough, but so what? You’ll learn and try again while the scabs on the knees heal and next time you’ll avoid the pitfall of this particular stupid mistake that made you fall. Next time another one may emerge a bit further down the road, and you’ll fall again. So What? You’ll go out, learn more, and try again. You don’t get to get off the hook by idolizing or blaming others for anything. Contrary to the popular “not a single F*** was given” regimes, where you can’t fail because you never do anything that has a chance of failing, responsibility gives your life purpose, meaning and freedom. It’s all on you and everything you do matters. Everything.