by Mike O’Mary

I received a letter this week from someone very special to me who told me that she liked the way I write and that she thought it must be nice to have some talent. She went on to say that she had yet to find her talent, and that she sometimes feels like she is a boring person. 

I have a couple of things I want to say to this person. First of all, I think it’s important to realize that almost everybody feels this way at some point in their lives. We look at our all-too-familiar surroundings and compare that to the lives of people we know or have heard about and end up thinking our lives are pretty mundane. But sometimes a little closer scrutiny will reveal hidden talents. You hold down a job, help maintain a home, love and look after your children, and serve as confidant and advisor to your friends. Every day, you fill a unique combination of roles that, when taken as a whole, reveal you to be more multifaceted than a marquis-cut diamond. I would hardly call that boring.

Also, in order to be boring, you have to be uninterested and unenthusiastic. If you are interested in the lives of those around you and in the world in which we live, you will be an interesting person. And if you are the least bit enthusiastic in the pursuit of your interests, you will attract the interest of others.

By the way, the person who told me she thinks she is boring…she spent her evening helping her kids with their homework and baking cookies. I guess boring is in the eye of the beholder. How can you be boring when your every action reveals the love that lives in your heart? When you are giving of yourself, you are loving. And loving is not boring.

Mike O’Mary is founding dreamer of Dream of Things, a book publisher currently accepting creative nonfiction stories for anthologies on 15 topics, including an anthology titled “Cubicle Stories: Life in the Modern Workplace.”