I’m pretty tired of people trying to motivate me.

Now before I explain, I do believe we all need people who encourage us to create dreams and go after them, especially at this formative stage in our lives.

But, if it isn’t coming from someone I know wants the best for me, personally, it’s empty. If you’re getting paid to tell me how great I can be, it’s hard to believe you.

I think what I need is a demotivational speaker. I’d be more likely to believe the sincerity of one of those.

Because when speakers come and define success as earning lots of money, meeting famous people and being the best, and then tell me that’s what I should strive for, otherwise I won’t be living a full life – those are some dangerous things to believe.

When I start to believe things like that, it’s easy to believe the world revolves around me and that what I want is always best for me.

They tell me if I believe in myself enough, then I can do anything I want. Which just isn’t true. I would really, really, love to be a professional rapper. But that’s just not in my cards. We all know that – not just that I can’t be a rapper, but that we aren’t invincibly successful.

Just think how refreshing it would be for a speaker to walk in to Chapel and tell us that, odds are, we will not end up with our dream jobs or end up with inordinately large salaries, but that we will live fairly ordinary lives. Tell us that we’re not special. I’d like that.

This is mainly because we don’t know what’s best for us. If I got what I wanted, I’d probably be miserable.

Big, crazy dreams are important, vital even, and we should sprint after them as hard as we can, but we need to realize that success shouldn’t be defined by the world’s standards and that living what seems to be a boring life isn’t bad or boring at all.

It’s OK to fail. It’s OK to be normal.