Common to Uncommon

“What are we going to do today Brain?” “The same thing we do every day Pinky, try and take over the world!” That is how every episode of an Animaniacs cartoon started. It was two lab rats bent on escaping from their scientific lab-rat cages to take over the world. They did the same thing everyday. Like a hamster on a wheel, but these were rats in a cage.
We tend to do the same thing everyday, especially as school is getting ready to start and our schedules find a more familiar rhythm. We jump into our well worn rut and trudge ahead into obscurity. Of course, when you read that last sentence, something inside you gets a wee-bit agitated, because you have no desire to work yourself into obscurity. Normal. Common. No, we want to be popular, well known, and very successful. So I guess the real question to ask then, is how did those truly successful people climb out of the rut of mediocrity and start running up the slippery slope of success?
What are we going to do today? Well, the same thing we do everyday, try and make a buck, feed our family, and pay our bills; That normal, common stuff. Every one of us has tasks that are common to our daily work. We don’t even consider them important, yet they are. In order to reform our ruts, we need to begin doing our common things in an uncommon way. Don’t stop doing what has always worked for you, just amp it up to a whole new level.
What separates a common company from an extraordinary one? Simple. The best companies do common things in an uncommon way. It says in the Bible that we should do everything we do as though we are doing it to the Lord himself. Now that’s a challenge.
If we take that challenge and apply it to our personal lives, then what we find is a new filter to run our thoughts and actions through. No longer can we allow our common tasks throughout the day to just be common acts. Now they must be uncommon. Extraordinary. Our days then evolve from the mundane to the spectacular.
To be honest, I’m sure this sounds as far fetched to you as it does to me, but the truth of the matter is that it really works. Over the last few months I’ve been applying this principle to my own life, and it truly changes the very fabric of my day. I take almost every event and attempt to make it uncommon. It doesn’t always happen. In fact most retain the same commonality as before, but now and then you push one of those common tasks over the bar of heightened concern and viola, your day is special. On top of that you realize that not only was that day or event special to you, it was special to someone else. Maybe a neighbor, or a co-worker, possibly even your child.
Everything we do, we should do it as though we were doing it for Jesus himself. Many times that’s just the motivation we need to turn those ordinary common tasks, into uncommon works of art. After a few years of that we’ll turn around and realize that not only have we enjoyed life to the fullest, but we’ve also decorated our communities with incredible masterpieces, that all resemble the master himself.