how?

“Don’t mind me.”

“Excuse me.”

“Mind if I get by?”

I have to say this again and again. I hate places with this many people. So crowded and hard to move. It makes me feel nauseous. It makes me want to curl up and hide. Get us out, my mind seems to scream. Get us out of this horrid, wretched place.

No, I say to my mind. All I’m here for is some bread and some cheese and some meat. That’s it. It won’t take long.

Newsflashes appear on the screens all around, parading the brilliance and salvation from some random hero. There’s a new super person every single day. I’m too bored to care now.

There’s been too many reiterations, too many newcomers. So what? The world is their story, but I don’t have to be part of it.

I don’t need to be just another random guy they save who says ‘oh yeah this hero is so cool they saved me!!’ Sometimes you can only mean something by being unnoticed. Sometimes the only way to be important is to seem the opposite. I believe that. You should too. It works. If you try hard enough, anything can be done. You could achieve greatness and the whole world could be none the wiser…

That’s the kind of thing I want to do. I want to be like a hidden diamond. Shining bright but invisible unless you dig for it. I know it can be done, and it’s a personal dream of mine to do it! But I haven’t figured out how I want to do it; that is to say, I don’t quite know what I want to do to become a hidden legend.

I know how. I’ll do it under a pen name with a fake address. No one will know it’s me unless they really look hard.

And I plan to make it so they definitely need to look really, really hard. I’m gonna hide. I don’t need others to know that I’m great, that I can do things just as important as any super-human, without needing the acknowledgement of the media or near-victims or people who hate me. I don’t need to be recognized. But I can still help the world. Just because I’m a side-character doesn’t mean I can't do something that will help everyone, just like them.

I try to ignore the hustle and bustle as I slip my items onto the checkout belt. “Hello, sir,” a man scanning my items says. “Find everything alright?”

“Yeah, I did. Thanks for asking. How about you, how are you doing?”

He seems surprised by the engagement, but he recovers quickly. “Great. Less than an hour left of work. Then I get to go home, spend the rest of my day with my family. You have a family?”

“Unfortunately, no. I wish I did, but… no. I have no one, really.”

“Well, you’re still a young kid. You’ve got plenty of time to settle down, do something new.”

“I believe anyone can pursue their dreams. Do you think you’ve pursued yours?”

“Yes. All I ever really wanted was a kid. I’ve got one now. Thanks for talking. Usually, people don’t. Oh, wait… thanks for shopping at WalMart.”

“Thank you, and I hope you have a really good day. Oh, by the way, my name is Jonas.”

“All right.”

I look at his name-tag. Lionel is his name. That’s a nice name. I like that. Quiet but fierce, is what that name says to me. I’ve always been able to take the little meanings from names and understand them. It’s just… nevermind. It’s not very useful. No one cares anyway. No one ever cares when you’re not famous or at least a little well-known. If you’re a nobody… you’re really a nobody.

But it’s not hard to change, to be somebody. All you have to do is grit your teeth and get it done. Why don’t more people try?

I guess it’s because…

If I’m being real, the world these days is designed to distract you and keep you sad. But all you need to do… is just ignore it. Just cut through the nonsense and do something with your life! I am doing it! I’ve never stopped trying, never stopped going. But so many people do. They just sigh and say, “oh, well, I guess I’ll just be a side character, live my dull life and maybe get my life saved by the seventh new flying kid this month.” What is that supposed to be?

That’s not anything close to living. That’s just surviving. That’s just existing. People need to live richer lives. And they try; people go on vacations and do things like rock-climbing and skydiving, but in the end, what is that accomplishing? You haven’t done anything that will leave a mark on the world, nothing that will really help people. That is the ultimate goal; to help, to be kind, to love, and if you don’t do that…

But that’s the thing. Everyone says “leave it to the superheroes.” But look and remind yourself of this; heroes aren’t heroes without ordinary people like you and me and most people. If they have no people to save, they have no purpose. Without you, they are nothing, so go and be something. You don’t need to be able to fly or to save a city to accomplish great things. No one even needs to know that it’s you who does it.

So just… go and do something. Anything. Anything could make a difference. All you need to do is fight and claw your way out of shadow, out of boredom, out of distraction. Fight for a future. A future where, because of what you do, is just a bit better. It’s amazing what the truth is; anything can be done, but no one is incentivized to do it. You could probably solve hunger without that much difficulty, but no one agrees on how to do it, so nothing gets done. That’s always where things get stopped. On “How.”

Anyway… what was I doing again? Oh, yes. Going home with my groceries.