God has a purpose in sending men into mortality. Essentially, he wants his sons and daughters to gain experience as husbands and wives, as fathers and mothers, and to display promise through those roles. He offers the possibility to rise to his station for those who pursue it, no matter what you bring to the effort in the way of capability or speed. You can live in service to any purpose you wish, but this world and its conditions are designed to facilitate God's purpose, which is TRANSCENDENCE.
I believe many people intentionally keep themselves low and easily offended because they are intimidated by "great ones" and cannot imagine themselves among their heroes. That is the first mountain that must be climbed - the barrier of our comfortable "smallness". You must believe that you can rise before it becomes noticeable. You must have your eyes on a higher goal and a higher place and begin to strive for it. This is the activity of transcendence.
It is not a week's or year's pursuit. It is a constant effort that began before you were born and will continue long after you are dead. It is the activity of striving toward your potential and discovering that one's potential is likely limitless, at least from our current vantage point. This transcendent development is the work and glory of the God worth emulating - the worthy God in every sense. The only ingredient to a stellar rise to unimaginable heights is the willingness of each of us to continue along the journey's path. Human development is the work of transcendence in the here and now.
The ideal place to transcend is initially among the family of your birth and subsequently within the family you form as an adult. If your childhood was great, you want to emulate your parents as you parent your own children. If your childhood was marred or even terrible, it should serve as a catalyst to strive harder to make the experience of your spouse and your children reflect a life lived better. Your past among family and friends constitutes your culture, pleasant or painful, and it is your duty to your ancestors to improve upon what you were given. It is not about finding excuses from your background, it is about striving to bring honor to those who gave you the opportunity of life and a name and a start.
Given changing morals and attitudes, especially in the West, it is less and less likely that many people embrace the activities that bring transcendence. For example, entire communities of people who follow gay, trans-gendered, or heavily sexualized lifestyles also sadly abandon the practices that lead to transcendence for themselves, those they sexualize with, and the children they will never bring into the world. As a counterpoint, natural marriage, childbearing and child-rearing are important ingredients in transcendence and it is disheartening to see people abandon their opportunity to rise and progress in this way. A large part of the writing on this site involves convincing people who are entangled in sexual perversions and other diversions to give up such practices and their attendant sub-culture in favor of activities that will lead them to the fulfillment only available through the pursuit of natural family life and transcendence.
Transcendence also comes as we remove barriers to its full flowering. Beyond what we think is our proper culture, we must not let anything get in the way of our progression. Where we come from, the habits we have formed, our efforts at status-seeking, and other considerations can keep us from shedding damning distractions to transcendent goals and avoiding potential detours on the path to progression.
You can also see an index of all the "trancendence" pages, many more than are linked here.