Celebrating Average

Mom always said to give it all and always try to best myself.

“Why you’re good if you can be better?” — Mom

That’s one quote that’ll never forget. And although it feels like something out of a self-improvement book, to me it was always a big burden.

What she was saying — willingly or not — was to never be happy with yourself. You’re not allowed to be happy of your achievements because tomorrow you need to do better; you need to BE better. And if you’re doing something where you get better with time, that makes a lot of sense.

If you’re into running, tomorrow you can run one more meter than today. You improved yourself, and that’s something to be proud of. Well, believe it or not, life doesn’t work that way. I tried to be the best in what I was doing, and since I was 7 or 8, that was school. And I was good at it. I felt the improvement every day and that worked for some years. Until It didn’t. I kept doing the same thing I was doing but didn’t improve. I couldn’t understand why that absolute truth suddenly wasn’t true anymore. A lot of kids were having way better grades than me and I felt really sad. Then it hit me: I was just an average guy.

When you’re 15 years old the sky is the limit. You not only think you’re always right, but you also know you’re going to have the most bad ass life ever. Imagine my head exploding while I was trying to cope with the fact that I was just and average guy. Ordinary people don’t make history. Extraordinary people do.

Now let me throw at you another baffling truth. The majority of people on earth are not extraordinary. I went ahead and did the math and it says right here that you are probably an average guy/girl as well.

As it turns out the best thing you can do is to accept your averageness. Now I’m not saying to quit your life and go live in the wilderness. But maybe there are some things you can do to adjust your lifestyle to who you are. Allow killer mike to flood you with his wisdom.

But how to celebrate it?

The keyword here is happiness. You need to do what makes you happy. If that is pursuing something that you will never achieve, then so be it. But since I believe my average reader has a bit of sense inside their head, then allow me to tell you what I do, because if it works for me then chances are it works for you too.

Lower your ambitions

Like killer mike says, if you lower your ambitions, them chances are you are going to achieve things faster. Don’t fall for that “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” shit. If you are going to shoot for the stars ad æternum even though you know you’ll never reach them, then shoot for the fucking moon in the first place.

Know when to quit

That’s a hard one. I took me years to accept that sometimes it is OK to quit. Sometimes you’re wasting energy in something that is just not worth it, or that you know it will never work. Quit now! Don’t waste time on something you know is never gonna happen. Focus your energy on what’s achievable and really important. I’m not saying that scientists that are involved in theories for decades are stupid, but maybe if they spend 20 years without any palpable progress, then maybe it’s best to accept the truth and move on.

Little victories are victories too

This might feel a bit sad, but I tend to celebrate a lot of meaningless things. Like when I start writing, I feel really good once I have the first paragraph done. It might seem stupid, but it really gives you the feeling of progress. Not only that but the fact that you’re happy and proud of what you did helps you feel that you’re doing the right thing.

Be happy

At the end of the day, the important thing is to be happy with what you did and know that you gave it your best. Trying to push harder every day is going to stress you. As that stress gets bigger it leads to sadness and unhappiness that eventually leads to a shitty life. So embrace your averageness and celebrate it, because it’s part of who you are.

Originally published at blog.campinhos.pt on December 14, 2015.