You can even join The Church of the Almighty Dollar.

Quoting from the First Epistles, Chapter 3:

"1 I pray thee, deliver twenty copies and see what cometh to pass on the fourth day.
2 This chain arriveth from Venezuela and was written by Saul Anthony de Crell, a missionary from South America.
3 I myself forward it unto thee.
4 Whereas the chain shall make the tour of the world, thou shalt make twenty copies identical unto this one and deliver them unto friends and disciples.
5 After a few days thou shalt receive a miracle.
6 This is true even if thou art not credulous."

The scariest part, though, is the Comparative Biography--also known as, "Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age". Here, you can enter your age and see every great thing other people did when they were at the same stage of life as you.

In my case:

John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.

Joan Ganz Cooney founded Children's Television Workshop and became the mastermind behind "Sesame Street."

Charles Thurber patented a typewriter.

Chemist Franz Karl Achard developed a process for extracting sugar from beets.

Physicist William Sturgeon created the first electromagnet.

Jean Eugene Atget, now considered one of the greatest photographers, took up photography.

Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, a mother of six who occasionally wrote for magazines, published Uncle Tom's Cabin, an antislavery novel of such force that it is generally recognized as one of the causes of the Civil War.

Earl Vickers unveiled his audio effects plug-in SFX Machine at the 1997 NAMM convention.

Now, I'm depressed. Take that, Ichiro!

[This first appeared at Solonor's Ink Well on July 20, 2002.]