"'That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was.'"

My last post, earlier on this same day, was on an essay I wrote for my linguistics class. My professor wanted us to write a linguistic autobiography; basically what our experience with language is, what we have thought about it, and so forth.

I don't know if anyone else who has seen it thought this, but after finishing it and reading through it as a whole completed work, I sounded a lot more impressive than I typically view myself to be. I had a lot to say about the subject of language. I didn't know that I knew so much! Not only that, I seemed to myself to be quite interesting. I don't usually envision kids so seriously studying others' speaking habits. Nor do I expect them to read 30 books in a day, lest they be on the level of Goodnight Moon. And I generally consider people who have moved extensively to be rich in experiences not afforded to those who have stayed in one general location their whole life.

I've done all of those things, but really, when I look at them in relation to myself, it doesn't seem like a big deal. Yeah, I was a kid that read a lot, but that's just because that's what I do. Winning the Little League World Series would have been far more impressive, because playing baseball well is just something that I don't do. And yes, I have lived in nearly as many separate places as the number of years I've been alive, but there's so much of the world that I haven't seen yet! I haven't even seen half of the states in my own country, let alone stepped outside of my country's borders.

Everything that has happened in my life, I have taken in stride. I've just been who I am and have behaved accordingly. Every experience that has come along, I have received, and then moved on to the next. It reminds me of a scene in Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows. Harry, in the middle of winter, jumps into a freezing pool of water to retrieve the sword of Gryffindor, which he believes will aid him in destroying Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes, Horcruxes being fragments of Voldemort's soul that he has placed inside certain objects in order to secure himself immortality. While in the water though, things don't go smoothly as he hopes and his friend Ron turns up out of nowhere, jumps in and saves Harry and retrieves the sword. Then after retrieving the sword, Ron destroys one of the Horcruxes that's already in Harry's possession. In the relief of the present drama being over, Ron apologizes for his recent abandonment of Harry and Hermione (that was why his appearance was so spectacular, because he had been nowhere around for weeks) and the following exchange between Harry and Ron occurs:

"'You've sort of made up for it tonight,' said Harry. 'Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life.'
'That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was,' Ron mumbled.
'Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was,' said Harry. 'I've been trying to tell you that for years.'"

And so Ron gets a great lesson in impressiveness. How things feel often doesn't compare to how they sound.

I'm just me. Just like you're just you, and probably feel just as unimpressive as I do. However, we're both capable of impressiveness, and that should always remind us to not fall into the so easily destructive habit of comparing ourselves to one another. Each of us are individuals. One may be impressive in one way, and the other impressive in another way, but each have equal value.