In my life I have met a few people who have said the words (and I’m paraphrasing):
“I like being average. I strive for mediocrity and that’s my right.”
The thing is, if you think like that you’re just plain WRONG. Imagine (if you will) a world that had nothing but average people in it. JFK would have made a speech about the moon program that went:
“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,… Oh wait, this isn’t going to be easy? Oh crap. I’m bored now. Has someone invented XBox yet?”
Now, you may say that’s not fair — we can’t all be Presidents and great leaders, or influencers who change the world. I’ll concede that in part. Keep score if you like. My response is that you are already changing the world, just by being in it.
Everything you do, everything you say, somebody is watching. And the funny thing about we humans is that we copy each other’s behaviour. Sometimes obviously, sometimes very subtly, but we all do it relentlessly, without even thinking about it. We’re wired that way from birth. It’s how we learn, and learning is 90% of what our brains spend their time doing. Accidentally swear in front of a 2 year old and you’ll know what I mean.
Another thing about we humans that bears some consideration is the fact that we all must die. Now don’t shoot the messenger on this one. I’m not just trying to be morbid. Bear with me for a minute. I’m saying that we share a talent for ignoring our own mortality. That particular talent allows us to convince ourselves that being mediocre is a life choice. WRONG. Humour me and think about your own death for 10 seconds. Imagine you will die in 3 days. Imagine that your time is limited.
Okay it’s time to stop imagining. You don’t need to. Your time is already limited, really, truly, without exaggeration, no imagining required. If you expect to live to age 75, you have a total of 2,366,820,000 seconds of existence to play with. If you’re age 25, you’ve already used up 788 923 149 seconds doing whatever it is you’ve been doing. Each day you lose another 86 400 seconds. By the time you’re 50 you’ll only have another 25 years left.
It’s time to ponder. How quickly did your first 25 years pass? What did you get done? How quickly do you think your last 25 years will pass?
What are you going to do with your time now? I’m not saying you need to go out and save the world. I am saying you need to savour this moment, right now. It’s all you’ll ever have. Do you want to spend it being mediocre, just average? Or do you want to make a difference — to the 2 year old who now says f*&ck because you did, to your neighbours, your workmates, your customers?
We’re all going to die anyway. Make the most of it, take a chance — what’s the worst that could happen? Oh that’s right! That’s already going to happen, so stop worrying about it!
What opportunity do you have right now to be more than average?
WOW! The opportunity I have RIGHT now is to go up the road and vote —- and not waste my vote and choose Homer Simpson or anything like that… Maybe I will actually spend some time talking to the sproukers out the front with the pieces of paper (that quite frankly the Greens shouldn’t print on) and make my vote an insightful one.
After reading what you’ve written though James, I want to go and jump out of an aeroplane or something (though not in a morbid way — I am talking about with a parachute! hehehehhe)
Thanks Briohne! I’ve always wanted to go skydiving too… I should take my own advice. I’ll be heading up to vote soon, I think this will be an important election.
We are all very special individuals, just like everybody else. If we had no mediocre, how would be measure success? And what’s mediocre anyway? I believe if a person thinks they are mediocre chances are they are actually unhappy more than ordinary. To strive for mediocrity truly is an individuals right. Some people just don’t want the responsibility.
Fo’shizzle, RadMan. My 2 cents worth.
Thanks Fiona, true enough. I don’t think it’s really about a comparison — ie, am I mediocre compared to someone else — so we don’t need to measure success by what other people are doing. It’s more a case of “Am I doing the best I can right now?”.