It's Great to be Alive

Many think of themselves as average persons, who live in average neighborhoods, work at average jobs, drive average cars, and attend average schools where they make average grades. They have average intelligence as well as average blood pressure. This "average" image, which is fixed in many people's minds, needs to be challenged because no person is just "average." Each person is a unique individual. You are a miracle, and everything about you is different from any other person that has ever lived-or who will ever live. No one has ever viewed the world exactly as you do or had the exact kinds of thoughts, hopes, and dreams as you have. Your whole life has been a continuous series of unique experiences that have never before happened in quite the same way. It is immoral for anyone to attempt to fit you into a mold or some prescribed pattern that someone else has determined for your life. Life is genuine only when you are free to be yourself and respond spontaneously and creatively to each experience. Life becomes artificial when we begin to play roles. Our culture conditions us to think of ourselves as average. We are given a social security number, an auto license number, a checking account number, a credit card number, a military service number, and countless other numbers which identify us in massive computer data bases. Take a number and wait! Computers tell us what to do and when to do it. But you are not average. You are an "original." You have been created to live an exciting life in which you see each moment as a special gift to be appreciated and explored. "Average" is a word used by those who have not discovered who they are. We were not born to simply exist for a certain number of years and then finally die. Life means more than simply working and keeping the bills paid. The tragedy is that many persons never catch that great vision of what life can be. Begin right now making the great discovery of who you are. Once and for all, get rid of the notion that you are just average. Celebrate the miracle that you are a unique person who is alive. When you discover that you are not just average, you will have found one more reason to believe that IT'S GREAT TO BE ALIVE!