People call it being average, but it's basically a non-hurting way of saying, "Yup, you are good for nothing." Harsh, but this is the reality for most of us who are just living like NPCs.
Average marks, average job, and average social life. This is the most common personality demographic in the worldโpeople donโt remember us, have no major expectations from us, arenโt jealous of our accomplishments, and donโt find much value in our presence. Even if we leave tomorrow, people will forget our existence in a week.
I'm good for nothing. During exams, no one asks me for notes or prep but later complained I wrote too much in answer scripts. Pretty average LinkedIn engagementsโthough they are top-of-the-funnel content, they get around 35 engagements, whereas my mates just post about completing a certification, promoting a random college club, or talking about their work or how they spent their weekend, and they get 200+ likes. No one really remembers me during a crisis or feels my absence. I am just the average of all averages.
Itโs better to be at the lower end of things than stuck in the middle. In the middle, you do most of the work, but seniors take away the credit. You pay the taxes, but the other ends enjoy the benefits. People barely consider your opinion, no matter how logical it is. Thereโs no major respect in society, no admirers, and no one really cares about your highs and lowsโnot even your failures. At least if they cared about your failures, you might have been important. But that isnโt the case. So, you lose out here too.
But why are we like this?
Didn't we work when required? Didnโt we deliver quality?
We did bothโbut only at a threshold level or maybe 10โ15% more than that. Then we moved on to a different expedition, and thatโs where we lost.
Just doing the threshold, the bare minimum, led us to being average. And why is it called average? Because the majority are doing it. Anything in abundance loses valueโjust like us.
But why are we only doing the bare minimum?
No motivation or no self-expectations?
Basically both. We always saw work as a task, with the perception that we just had to complete it at a benchmark level of quality. But high performers? They follow it to the core, try to learn as much as possible, and leave their signature on the work.
The problem with us?
We know all this, yet we still donโt act on itโand then complain about being average.
I donโt have a solution for this, and Iโll keep crying over the fact of being average.