Two years ago in my sophomore English class, my teacher showed a video of a commencement speech given by David McCullough Jr., a history teacher at Wellesley High School. In his speech to the graduating class of ’12, he described how children have been “pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, and bubble-wrapped.” Making his claim that parents and others have glorified their children for too long.

As my senior year begins to come to a close, I’m beginning to realize how much of this speech is true. In high school, students tend to think that achieving higher grades and going to a university their first two years makes them such an amazing and outstanding person. What makes them so different from the other one million students doing the same thing? Or, what makes the graduating class’ valedictorian so special from the thousands of other valedictorians that year? Oh, so you can maintain a work ethic, read words in a book, and memorize flashcards. Good for you.

Now, I’m not saying that no one in the world is special, because there are few exceptions. It’s the men and women who always sought to go against “the man” and do what no one has done before.

It took Thomas Edison 1,000 tries before he perfected the light bulb; one of man’s most greatest and historic inventions. Instead of accepting failure and counting it as a loss, Edison never gave up.

When Beethoven was in his mid-thirties, he became completely deaf in both ears. Most critics/people say that his best work came from the last two decades of his life; when he was completely deaf.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected twelve times by publishers until J,K, Rowling’s book was picked up by a small publishing company.

But, the point of this article isn’t to tell you to never give up, it’s to show that people in this age glorify their accommodations and accolades like they are the very best in what they do. But, sorry to tell you, it has already been done. Sure, you can become a doctor, or an astrophysicist, or even a pop culture celebrity. But, until you can bring something new to the table that hasn’t been done before, you are like everyone else; you are not special.

Even some of the greatest thinkers know that they’re far off from anything special. Confucius, a brilliant mind from fifth century B.C., knew that he was far from anything unique, and can probably be described from this one quote:

“To know what we know, and to know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”

The one thing that people should grasp is this: stop treating individuals as some glorified gift from God, because they’ll probably become nothing more than what someone has already done. Yes, it is quite an accomplishment to graduate from medical school or to become a Navy SEAL, but you should not think you are different from another since you have completed such high tasks; because there is someone before you or right now who has done the same thing, or even better.

And don’t take these words too seriously either. Everyone in the world is unique. Each individual has distinct qualities that make them different and unique from others, but that does not make them any better than another person.

“You are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We’re all part of the same compost heap. We’re all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”

-Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club