William Peace rants here about misuse use of the word ‘amazing’. Hearty dittos — go read and be inspired to curmudgeonliness.
As long as we’re on the topic, here’s my list of a few more things that are not amazing:
Parenting more than two children. I have a mere four, and I get the ‘wow how do you do it??’ thing even from other Catholics. (My answer: Not that well, frankly.) Er, hey guys, I’m a married lady. It’s a normal biological function.
Homeschooling. Especially when you do it as haphazardly as I do. Might not be your thing. But again: It is entirely normal for parents to be able to teach their own children. You know back all those centuries when married couples were still in the habit of procreating regularly? Most of them also trained their very own children to follow in whatever trade they practiced. Now I don’t know how to weave or spin or farm, but I can read and write pretty well. So it isn’t particularly amazing that I can teach my children to do the same.
Teaching 5th Grade CCD. Sordid truth: 5th graders are the best. The rest of you guys are missing out. Actually I’ve only had one person tell me this was amazing — and that one person was someone who possesses a number of talents I only dream of. So her comment wasn’t really about anything being ‘amazing’ so much as recognition that we all have different skills and preferences.
–> I don’t suppose there’s anything really wrong with using the A-word loosely, to merely mean “you are able to do something well that many other people don’t do very well”. And certainly we shouldn’t lose sight of wonder of the every day world: flowers and children and birds and wideness of the sky are all amazing, when we are pulled out of our busy thinking and stop to consider them.
But back to my ditto, above. It is woefully patronizing to gush over non-achievements. If you’ve gotten into that habit, maybe not even realizing it, perhaps 2010 is the year for you to quit?