Being an average or mediocre person is something that will attract almost 90% of the world's population. Today in the world of the cutthroat competition how does a person who is average and not an extraordinary or gifted person cope. It might make us feel extremely dispirited and underconfident every time we are confronted with the truth that we are just mediocre and therefore won't achieve what we want.
In fact, being mediocre has been a stigma in our society. It is absolutely normal in our society to use the word average to infer someone who is not good enough and is thus looked down upon. It has become something that people feel ashamed of being called. Imagine someone referring to us saying that he/she is just average. Would you accept it without feeling at least some pain and insult.
Usually, stigma is attached to less prevalent things in society or with things that aren't the norm of society, for example, the stigma attached with the LGBTQ community. But being average is something every person wants to avoid. Why despite there being more than 80% average people, there is so much stigma attached to being average. No one wants to be called an average person. Everyone is fighting hard to be not called average but the best.
As kids, we have been conditioned to avoid the word “average”, and that is in fact the worst thing to be instilled in a young kid's mind. A child is not supposed to be burdened with loads of expectations of exceptional performance. Every kid is different and parents in our society fail to understand this simple fact and instead keep telling them that they need to be as good as the other kid. Such upbringing has a drastic impact on the mind and psychology of a small kid who grows up to abhor the word average. What happens is that we all cannot be exceptional because that would completely alter the meaning of exceptional. Further being exceptional is quite subjective, there are no sure-shot criteria for it. While you might be thinking that you're just average, someone else might have found you exceptional for your certain trait.
It usually happens that kids who are extremely bright do not turn up into extraordinary individuals and the best example would be my own. Growing up as a kid, I was always an overachiever in almost all areas be it socializing, sports, or (of course) academics. Yet I grew up into a totally mediocre, low-key university student who constantly hated being average and wanted to be recognized by others as an extraordinary student. Also, no one has pointed at me particularly and said she's just average, but I lived in constant fear that I'll have to hear this one day or the other. Also, I had classmates who were just average in primary classes and slowly they grew becoming the best performers by the time we passed out of school.
Just as the colors do not come in just black and white but in plenty of colors, we as humans do come in varieties. So we are not born exceptional but we are unique and there is no one else in this world who is like us. Mediocrity too needs to be destigmatized so because it is something that's holding us back from living an unbothered life. But by all this, I do not intend to put forward the idea that we should stop working on excelling in things; in fact, we should never stop making efforts in the field we are passionate about and keep working. All I wish to understand is why is mediocrity so off-putting for us. Why do all the famous quotes keep telling us mediocrity is the worst.
Let me know what do you think of this Mediocrity stigma.
