This week, while reading The Courage to Be Ordinary by Ichiro Kishimi, I came across a chapter titled:
“You Don’t Need to Stand Out to Be Different.”
I stopped there for a while.
We live in a time that constantly asks us to distinguish ourselves—to be noticed, admired, remembered and recognised.
Even individuality has become something we are expected to perform.
And when you are building a brand, the pressure is even greater.
Be louder. Be newer. Be impossible to ignore.
But after spending most of my adult life around eyewear and many years learning how to make it, I have begun to feel:
“The true difference is often much quieter.”
It is found in the person who knows what matters to them and no longer needs everyone else to notice. In someone who has stopped competing with the room and has become comfortable occupying their own place within it.
The quiet discipline
The Tao Te Ching says:
“He is free from self-display, and therefore he shines.”
Tao Te Ching
What a beautiful contradiction.
The less we try to appear extraordinary, the more something honest begins to emerge.
This does not mean becoming passive, careless or mediocre. The courage to be ordinary is not the courage to do ordinary work. It is the courage to do meaningful work without needing to turn yourself into a spectacle.
The Bhagavad Gita offers a similar discipline:
“You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.”
Bhagavad Gita
Do the work because the work deserves to be done well, not because it might bring praise, success or recognition.
Jesus cautioned against doing even good things merely to be seen by others:
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.”
The Buddha taught:
“Contentment is the greatest wealth.”
And the Upanishad gives us the wonderfully paradoxical instruction:
“Enjoy through renunciation; do not covet.”
Upanishad
These traditions are not saying precisely the same thing. Yet within each, I hear a related invitation: loosen your grip on recognition, comparison and possession.
Mastery, True Wealth and Fit
This thought returns me to the three dots of COCO LENI.
They represent Mastery, True Wealth and Fit.
Mastery is not about appearing more talented than someone else. It is the quiet repetition of a task until your hands begin to understand what words cannot explain.
We shape. We polish. We adjust. We look again. Often, nobody will ever know how many small decisions went into a frame. But we know, and the person wearing it will eventually feel it.
True Wealth is not the appearance of abundance. It is having enough time to do something properly. Enough freedom to choose what matters. Enough confidence not to turn every possession into proof of our worth.
And then there is Fit.
Perhaps fit is not only physical.
A frame should not overpower the person wearing it. It should not manufacture a personality or announce its price from across the room.
We want to help each person look more like themselves.
This is why we avoid placing a loud logo on your face.
Difference is not always decoration. Sometimes, it is simply the dignity of being properly seen.
The courage to belong to yourself
Perhaps this is what it means to have the courage to be ordinary: to stop asking, Will people notice me? and begin asking, Is this true to who I am?
To work without constantly looking around for applause.
To choose fewer things, but choose them with care.
“We don’t need to be better than others. We just need to be ourselves.”
Is it just a feeling, peace, gratitude, or wealth..
Not the last one for sure, have seen too many wealthy people.. unloved, angry and unhappy.
When I was younger, I mistook it for infatuation, exci...
