A NEW YEAR MESSAGE TO THE RUNTS…In a group, a runt is a member that is smaller or weake

A NEW YEAR MESSAGE TO THE RUNTS… In a group, a runt is a member that is smaller or weaker than the others. Because of this it faces obvious disadvantages, including difficulties competing with its siblings for survival and possible rejection from its mother and the rest of the litter. Therefore, a runt is less likely to survive. I was born a runt. My parent’s marriage was over by the time I arrived and I was left in the care of my elderly grandmother. My father remarried when I was four and that – not really through any fault of my own – didn’t work out too well for me either. At nine, back into my grandmother’s care I went. That’s where I would stay until sixteen when I moved into a two-bedroom apartment with my father. By then, I was accustomed to isolation. I was the second oldest of five siblings but lived with them for less than five years of my life. I knew them as my brother and sisters but not as people. Absent from their home videos, I went years on end without seeing my mother and was so disconnected that many times I’d only see my other immediate family on Sunday’s, at church. Children can’t register circumstance. Divorces don’t compute, neither does the idea of stepchildren, half-children or the like. All you recognize is that you aren’t treated like the other kids and unable to process a ‘why,’ there’s no other recourse but to blame yourself. So I did. I began to play the ‘Enough’ game. Am I not nice enough? Funny enough? Neat enough? Cute enough? Smart enough? Clean enough? Maybe I don’t do enough interesting things? Have enough cool stuff to talk about? For many years, I said nothing. The isolation had become normal, even if it was hurtful. Once I did find the courage to complain, I was labeled sensitive, dramatic, and needy. And I was. I needed my family. I began to write. I started with films. I wrote movies because they were the only things that always had a happy ending. And that’s what I wanted: my own happy ending. I moved on to journaling. Putting my thoughts, my fears and eventually my dreams down on paper meant I didn’t have to shoulder them alone. My words became my friends, my companions. Soon, my questions of ‘enough’ became a starting point for ‘more.’ Reading was my escape from writing. I’d lose myself for hours inside the lives of others, different experiences completely unlike my own. There was much more out there than my isolation suggested. I’d emerge from these pages with a variance of crucial life skills, a better understanding of myself and most importantly, a realization that I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t the only runt out there. There are many of us. I define the runt as the underdog. We show weakness early, placing a target on our backs. We’re the whipping boys, the bullied, the blamed, the scapegoats, the underestimated and voted least likely to do…anything. Darwinism suggests we’re supposed to be weeded out. It’s survival of the fittest. But for some of us – many of us – it’s actually the opposite. Being the runt will eventually make us the fittest to thrive. If the law of the jungle is ‘only the strong survive’, then we’re the strongest. In the New York Times bestseller Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell deconstructs success from the inside out. He explains why an overwhelming majority of professional Canadian hockey players are born between the months of January through March. The answer to this anomaly is as simple as it is mind-blowing: they missed the deadline. The Canadian equivalent of the peewee league has a December 31st cutoff for new applicants. That means if you’re born in the few months that follow, you can’t join the team with your classmates. Instead you’ve got to wait until next year. But by then you’re 5, playing with a bunch of four year olds. You’re bigger, faster and better equipped to dominate. What was a disappointment the year before eventually becomes your life-long advantage. That’s what happened with me. It’s what’s possible for all of us. Sometimes our greatest blessings are the things we’re denied. For me, it was the ability to connect. I searched my entire life for a family. In doing so, I used my words to tell my own and the stories of others. A place to belong became my driving force. And it drove me to a future brighter than I could’ve imagined. I was the runt of my family. You might be the runt of your company, your social circle, neighborhood or maybe you just don’t fit in. Regardless of circumstance, the mere fact that you’re here, right now, reading this, means you are a miracle. And that is enough to get you to the next step: using it to your advantage. We’re the runts who survived. And it’s actually the years of mistreatment, doubt, underestimation, being cast out, counted out, denied a rightful place at the teat and made to think that we aren’t quite enough, that built us stronger. I can run because I learned to stand and walk on my own. I learned to hustle out of necessity hoping one day I’d be able to work my way into the litter. Instead it took me to an entirely new world. So as a new year begins, my message to my fellow runts – the ones who are constantly reminded we’re not enough, that we can’t sit with them – is this: Let them have the table, let them have the teat. You will be ok. They’re only making us stronger. -- source link

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