The Merits Of Mediocrity
Recorded human history is filled with tales of exceptional heroes who lived extraordinary lives and did extraordinary things. Ancient Roman and Greek myths tell us of heroes who won wars single-handedly and, in some cases, confronted the gods themselves. Medieval Europe had tales about chivalrous and gallant knights who slayed dragons and saved princesses. Every culture is replete with fantastical stories of unbelievable courage and unmatched skill.
Today, we don’t see such embodiments of courage and bravery. To compensate for their absence, we have conjured fictional superheroes to fill the voids in our imagination. Take Superman — that guy is basically a God in a human body donning a blue jumpsuit and red underwear inside out. He is indestructible, unbeatable, and invincible. He flies at supersonic speeds, survives nuclear blasts, lifts thousands of tons of weight, and gets resurrected from the dead. The only thing as sturdy as his physical fortitude is his moral fortitude. He views justice in black and white and never wavers from what is right. But here’s the catch — Superman does not exist. He’s fiction.
And then there is this other guy. He’s athletic, talented, and handsome. He is a philanthropist, tech genius, and a billionaire with a jawline so sharp as if Zeus himself came down from Olympus to carve the man. He’s always coming up with new ways to save the world, and when he’s not doing that, he’s changing supermodel girlfriends like how you change your socks. He’s a big fan of justice and is always there to succour the helpless and the downtrodden.
The man, you guessed it, is Bruce Wayne, also known as Batman. But he does not exist. He’s also fiction.
As humans, we conjure up these heroes to help us cope with our own feelings of powerlessness. There are over 8 billion people on this planet, and only a few thousand have significant worldwide influence in any meaningful way. That leaves the remaining 99.9999% of us to come to terms with the limited scope of our lives and the fact that the vast majority of what we do will likely be forgotten once we are dead.
Most of us want to leave our mark on the world, to do something extraordinary that people would remember us by once we are gone. We want to live exceptional lives — we want to feel like we have contributed something valuable to the world. Being ordinary or average can feel like a failure, like we haven’t lived up to our potential. Plus, in a world that idolizes fame and success, being exceptional can bring social status, admiration, and validation.
This mentality is problematic, as it focuses too much on grand accomplishments and leaving a lasting legacy, and overlooks the small, everyday moments that make life beautiful and meaningful, like spending time with loved ones and pursuing hobbies.
Today, I want to talk about the merits of mediocrity and the virtues of being average. Not the merits of pursuing mediocrity — why would anyone do that? — but rather, the merits of accepting mediocrity when we end up there despite our best efforts.
Behind The Curve
We are all born with different aptitudes and potentials. Some have a knack for academic learning, others have great physical skills. Some are athletic. Others are artistic. In terms of skill and talent, humans are a wildly diverse group of creatures. Sure, what we achieve in our lives depends greatly on the effort and hard work we put in, but we are all born with different aptitudes.
In statistics, there’s this thing called a bell curve. It is quite simple. Take a population of people, let’s say people who play soccer at least once a year. The horizontal axis represents how good they are at soccer. Further to the right means they are really good, and further to the left means they suck.
Notice that at the extremes. the curve gets really thin. That means there are a few people who are really, really good at soccer. And a few people who are really, really bad. The majority fall into the mediocre middle. We can apply this curve to a lot of things in a population, such as emotional maturity, wages, height, weight, et cetera (Note: bell curves are not symmetrical, and they vary in height and width, but the concept remains the same).
For example, here is Lionel Messi shooting a curved free-kick. It is well known that he is the best person to ever do it. Therefore, he’s way to the right side of the curve, better than 99.99% of people who have ever shot a free-kick.
And then there is this guy. Obviously, he’s not Messi. In fact, chances are many people reading this can do much better than this guy. That means he’s towards the bottom end of the bell curve, an extreme on the left side.
We laud and cherish Messi because he’s more athletic and talented than most of us. We laugh at this guy because he is far worse than most of us. Both are at the extremes of the bell curve. And most of us are in the middle.
We Are Average At Most Things
We all have our strengths and weakness — there are a few areas of our lives where we perform better than most people, and some areas where we are horrible. But in most things that we do, we are all pretty average. If you are truly exceptional at one thing — say math — chances are, you are pretty average or below average in hundreds of other things. That’s just the nature of life. To become truly exceptional at something, you have to dedicate time and energy to it. And since we have that in limited supply, a few of us are truly exceptional at more than one thing, if anything at all.
So, we can say that it is statistically improbable that any single person can be an extraordinary performer in more than one area of their life. Bruce Wayne and Superman don’t exist. Brilliant businessmen often fuck up their personal lives. Extraordinary athletes can be as clueless about life as the next guy. Most celebrities are probably as dumb as a lobotomized rock (Take Kanye as an example).
For the most part, we are all pretty average people. It is the extremes — the truly best and the truly worst — that get the publicity. We all know this, but we rarely stop to think about it. The majority of us will never be truly exceptional at anything, and that’s okay.
Which leads to a very important realization: Mediocrity, as a goal, sucks. But mediocrity, as a result, is okay.
It is a hard fact to stomach. When we expect to be extraordinary — or worse, when we feel entitled to be extraordinary — problems arise, like “What’s the point of living when whatever I do is mediocre at best?” In reality, this is not viable or likely. For every Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, there are a million scrubs playing mediocre soccer at public parks. For every Picasso and DaVinci, there have been a million drunk idiots thinking they’ve just painted the next Mona Lisa. For every Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy, there are millions like me who think they’ve just penned the greatest truth in human history.
The Culture of Exceptionalism
We have this expectation or entitlement, more today than perhaps at any time in human history, thanks to the internet, social media, and economic privilege. There are millions of sources of information on Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. We have access to more information than at any other time in history.
But our attention is limited. Of the waves of information we are flooded with on a daily basis, only the truly exceptional — the 99.999th percentile — capture our attention. The information we receive is truly extraordinary — the best of the best, the worst of the worst. And that falls on the thin corners of the bell curve. The majority of the information in is mundane and boring, and, therefore, it never captures our attention. We are fed information that comes from the extremes of the bell curve because that is what gets eyeballs and brings in dollars. The majority of life continues to reside in the middle.
The flood of information has conditioned us to believe that exceptional is the new normal. And since all of us are rarely exceptional at any one thing, we feel insecure and desperate to feel exceptional all the time. So, we compensate. Some do this by winning every award at school or work. Others do it by colliding planes with multi-storey buildings. A few of us do it by feeding hungry babies in Africa. We feel trapped in this culture today where we have to constantly prove to the world how exceptional, unique and extraordinary we are.
If I’m Not Extraordinary, What’s The Point?
In the age of social media, the mantra of our extraordinariness and speciality has been tirelessly circulated. It has become an accepted part of our global culture that we are all destined to be extraordinary, to achieve something special. Everyone says it — business tycoons, motivational speakers, self-help gurus, celebrities, and influencers. Everyone! Being “average” has become the standard of failure. The worst thing you could do is be in the middle of the bell curve.
But the fact is that the statement is contradictory — after all, if everyone was extraordinary, then, by definition, no one would be extraordinary. This is missed by most people.
The fact is that, statistically, we are all in the middle of the bell curve in most of the things we do in our day-to-day lives. Sure, you might be a student with an envious academic record and loads of shining trophies. But you might go home, lock yourself in your room and cry your eyes out because you have zero friends. Celebrities might embody perfection on social media, but they go home and be lousy parents. Sure, athletes might be the pinnacle of success and fitness for us, but they also have their fair share of emotional problems. The point is, no one stays exceptional for very long. Except for one or a few areas of life here and there, we are all the same.
The Curse of Mediocrity
People hate the idea of mediocrity because they believe that if they accept being mediocre, they will never achieve anything in their lives and never improve. They will live their boring, average lives and fade into oblivion once they pass away, without making a dent in our collective memory. To them, their mediocre lives will not matter.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. Once you accept that life is worthwhile only if it is truly great and notable, you are basically saying that the majority of the human population is worthless. That is a very dark place to put yourself into, and we know how dangerous people with this kind of thinking can be (ever heard of Hitler?).
Most people are not so twisted and dark. Their problem with accepting mediocrity is more practical. They worry that “If I accept I’m average, then I’ll never achieve anything great. I’ll have no motivation to improve myself.”
But this, too, is a misguided belief. The feeling of being exceptional does not make you great. It is the other way around — by accepting that you are not the best at something, you continuously improve and be better. Think about it: The people who truly become exceptional at something do so because they are obsessed with improvement. The obsession with improvement stems from the unerring belief that they are not so great after all, and there is room for improvement. Paradoxically, it is by embracing mediocrity that you achieve greatness.
It is one of the hard truths of human life — the more you try to prove to yourself that you are exceptional, the more miserable you will feel. If you wish to be smarter and more successful than everybody else, you will always feel like a failure. If you wish to be loved and be more popular, you will always feel lonely. If you wish to be more powerful and admired, you will always feel weak and impotent.
All this “every person is extraordinary and special” stuff is bullshit. It is sold to you to make you feel good and push you through another week without killing yourself. It is a message that tastes good, but in reality, it is nothing more than empty emotional calories that make you bloated and gross. Emotional health stems from accepting the mundane truths of life. Accepting that you are actually pretty average in the grand scheme of things, and so is everybody else. The vast majority of your life will be mediocre and bland.
It will feel bad at first. You will avoid it, but once you’ve genuinely accepted it, you will breathe a sigh of relief. The pressure of always being exceptional, being the next big thing, or hopping in on every other trend to be relevant, will be lifted off of your back. The feeling of inadequacy will dissipate. Accepting your mundane and average existence will break the shackles and leave you free to accomplish what you truly wish to accomplish.
You will have a growing appreciation of life’s basic experiences. Extraordinary moments, after all, come from ordinary moments — making new friends, reading a new book, visiting a new place, helping a person in need, and laughing with someone you care about. It is these small, mundane activities that make life memorable, not the once-in-a-lifetime transformative experiences.
Yeah, I know. It sounds kinda boring. But most of the things in life are average. But they are average for a reason because these are the things that truly matter.
Summary
Congrats. You made it to the end. Here’s what I want you to take away from this:
· It is the ordinary, mundane, and boring activities that add meaning and value to your life, not the once-in-a-lifetime transformative moments.
· Mediocrity, as a goal, is problematic. But mediocrity, as a result, is okay.
· The extremely talented and the extremely inept are a rarity — they exist at the farthest ends of the bell curve.
· It is statistically improbable that any single person can be extraordinary in more than one or a few areas of their life.
· If everyone was extraordinary, then, by definition, no one would be extraordinary.
· It is by embracing mediocrity that you achieve greatness — by accepting that you are not great at something, you strive and improve.
