Most of your body’s weight is elements that were forged inside stars. You’re not as ordinary as you feel.

The material you are built from came from somewhere extraordinary and went through a great deal to get here. That does not make you special in a way that demands anything of you. It does make the word ordinary a strange fit. Whatever you feel about yourself on a flat afternoon, the raw ingredients have a serious history.

On a day when you feel completely unremarkable, read about where the atoms in your hand came from. Ten minutes of that beats any amount of telling yourself you are fine.