A few weeks ago, after I’d sobbed on a good friend’s shoulder about the many woes that had recently come my way to visit, she brought me a little magnet to stick on my fridge:

How swell is this?  After sharing a chuckle over it with my sweet friend, this dolled-up declaration got me thinking:  we are all, each one of us, kind of a big deal.  What we do and who we’re trying to become matters, even if nobody notices us at all.  (Did I say “if?”  I meant when nobody notices us at all.  Because they won’t.  Accept that reality.)

If we allow our individual obscurity to convince us that we’re small potatoes, we’ll live our lives as though we are.  But if we understand—believe—that the world’s recognition of us has no bearing upon our potential for greatness (and by “greatness,” I do not necessarily mean greatness-by-the-world’s-standards), we’d stop worrying and start working toward whatever fabulous dreams we’ve been hoarding in our hearts since we were seven years old.  And you know what those dreams are—you’re just too afraid to say them out loud.

Stop worrying about how itty-bitty is your place in The Universe, because as far as your universe is concerned, it’s all riding on you, baby.  And your universe is as real, and as valid, as that of the uber-famous.  Less eyes on it doesn’t make it any smaller.

You’re kind of a big deal.  So live like it.

(Just don’t, for heaven’s sake, act like it.)