The Strength to be Unexceptional

He sat across from me, looking distraught, his story spilling out before I even asked a question.

Over Yom Tov, he and his family were visiting his in-laws in a large out-of-town community. The kind of neighborhood where all the children play freely, running from one house to another. His kids loved it — they already had friends there from past visits on previous Yomim Tovim.

But this time, something went wrong. His three-year-old daughter didn’t come home. At first, everyone assumed she was just playing. But as the minutes turned into hours, nerves began to set in. His wife and her entire family mobilized. They scoured the streets, knocked on doors, and called out her name.

And him? He had this strange mix of emotion. On the one hand, he was scared of what may have happened to her but on the other he could not bring himself to join in the search.

“I just couldn’t do it,” he admitted. “I walked around a little, but half-heartedly. And when it came to knocking on doors — forget it. I stayed back. I kept telling myself she was safe, probably in someone’s house, but… I just couldn’t.”

I asked him why. His answer came in two parts.

First: social anxiety. “Knocking on strangers’ doors and asking if my daughter was inside? That’s torture for me.”

Second: the futility argument. “Look, the neighborhood is huge. I don’t even know which houses have kids her age. My wife’s family does — so the odds of me being the one to find her were very small. Why bother?”

Eventually, his wife did find their daughter — happily playing at a neighbor’s. But the incident stayed with him. “I knew the right thing was to be out there, doing what everyone else was doing- searching for her, regardless of whether or not I would be the one to find her. But I couldn't."

For him, the logic was simple: “Either I have a significant chance of being the one to find her or my efforts are all in vain.” And since he believed the odds were against him, he could not bring himself to act.

This wasn’t about laziness. It was really about self-worth. When your sense of value is fragile, you need recognition and tangible results to feel like you matter. If you’re just another guy in the crowd who is part of a collective effort then what’s the point?

I pushed him gently: “But is that how the world really works?”

Think about community search efforts. When a child goes missing in the woods, hundreds show up to help. Each one knows the odds of being the one to find the child are tiny. But they search anyway. Why? Because the collective effort matters — even if the result and recognition doesn’t come.

Think about soldiers. Most will never fire their weapon in combat, yet they train daily, staying combat-ready. Not because they’ll definitely be called upon to fight, in fact they most likely won't, but rather because it’s their job and it needs to be done.

Think about the TSA agent. In an entire career, he’ll likely never find a bomb in a suitcase. But every single bag is checked with vigilance. Why? Because the job itself matters — not the glory of finding something.

This struck him. He had never thought of effort as meaningful unless it came with results. To him, value came only from being a hero and delivering results. But now, a new idea was dawning: there’s honor in simply showing up.

“Maybe you didn’t need to be the one who found your daughter,” I told him, “but just needed to be one of the searchers.”

He sat quietly, absorbing. It was a foreign concept — finding satisfaction in the act itself, not the outcome.

“Okay,” he finally said. “But how do I become okay with that? How do I stop needing to be the hero?”

That’s the work ahead.

Because the truth is, most of life isn’t about being the hero. It’s about being part of the people who show up, who try, who carry the load together. And sometimes, the greatest strength is in being ok with being unexceptional — in being one more person knocking on one more door, even when no one notices.

*Details may have been changed.