Tips for living a happier, healthier, more fulfilled life by embracing the virtues of the comfortable, middle zone of ‘average’.

That’s a good click-bait-y title and tag line right?
Be honest, did that make you click on this article/site to see what I have to tell you?

However you ended up here, welcome.
I’m not sure if you’ll leave this page any healthier, but maybe something here will resonate with you.

What is ‘average’?

I did the usual thing and Googled this, of course. As per the known trope, several dictionary references have helped me define it as;

• a number expressing the central or typical value in a set of data.
• a standard or level that is considered to be typical or usual
• a single value… that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values.

So we’re talking about being in the middle.

Which, I’ve come to realise, is where I feel like I have been my whole life – and the more I thought about it, the more I’ve found that I am very much OK with this.

Perhaps you’re like me; you have tried a bunch of activities – or picked up a load of hobbies, skills, projects – and found that while you’ll progress some way through them, you don’t really seem to excel at any of them.
I’m here to tell you, that’s OK. In fact, that’s GOOD.
And in case you don’t believe me yet, here’s a few reasons why…

1. You’re rubbing shoulders with the greats

During the Renaissance period in Europe, roughly between the 14^th and 17^th century, there was an explosion of culture and a revival of interest in, and importance placed on philosophy, art, literature and science. This period gave rise to the concept of Humanism and the belief that the capabilities of Man were limitless. With this came the notion or ideal of the ‘Renaissance Man’.

The Renaissance Man (or Woman) seeks to embrace all areas of knowledge and physical developments to expand their own capabilities. An often-cited example of this is Leonardo da Vinci who is to this day known for his art, science, music and invention – but did you know he often had a hard time finishing projects?

So dabble! Try things out!
It might seem like a counter-point to reference someone exceptional like da Vinci, but he too was not great at a lot of things (he was a procrastinator, and some of his experimental painting techniques have caused the end results to be unstable and a constant struggle to preserve).
By trying out lots of different things (and not necessarily being great at all of them) we keep learning and growing. Plus I bet you won’t get bored…

2. Variety is the spice of life

Following on from the above, trying out a lot of things gives your life a greater variety and increases your breadth of experience, without you needing to be ‘the best’ at all of them.

It’s a good thing to have a diverse range of knowledge to both allow you to approach future challenges with different perspectives and to relate to an increased number of other people.

Think of it like this, who would you rather have a conversation with; the person who can only engage with you on a single topic, or someone who you can find multiple similarities/differences with and continue your discussion?

A short example of my own:

I once went to a small get-together of colleagues after work for people that had all been involved in a specific project. I was fairly new to the company, and had never spoken to/met about 60% of the people around the table (I’m sure that is triggering some other people’s social anxiety too… let’s get into that another time).

After a little while I found myself talking to a guy who was nice enough, and happened to have expressed an interest in Star Wars, of which I am a big fan. HOWEVER, I don’t necessarily want to be locked into conversation after conversation about this series, that character, some upcoming development or (god forbid) fan fiction. It was endless. Any time I tried to change the topic to anything else, he’d somehow route it back around to a galaxy far far away…

A boring song or line of discussion can be described as one-note, just repeating the same thing over and over. I, for one, do not want to be like that as a person, and would rather experience a lot of things to an ‘average’ degree, than force myself to do just one thing to ‘mastery’.

3. Survival of the…average-est

When we learn about evolution of species over time, Charles Darwin and natural selection in school, we hear the phrase “survival of the fittest”. The phase simplifies the idea that the species with the greatest adaptation to it’s immediate, local environment (not fittest as in it’s athleticism) is the most likely to survive long enough to reproduce and pass on it’s genes and create the greatest number of copies.

Two key points to me here;

‘greatest number of copies’

When I’m picturing the ‘average’ in a natural setting, it seems to me that it doesn’t necessarily pay off to be an outlier at the front of the pack, as it were.
I’m imagining a shoal of fish swimming in a big group, who’s going to get picked off by an oncoming predator? Well, that would probably be Johnny Fast-fins who just had to swim out in front and show off…

He might have been the fastest paddler in the Pacific, but if he’s eaten by a shark, Johnny’s not going to be passing those genes on to anyone.

‘Greatest adaptation’

if you can only do one thing, really really well, what happens when that one thing is no longer relevant or available?
By embracing a larger, varied skill set we increase our ability to adapt to new situations and surroundings; be that basic survival in reaching an available food source, or being able to find a new job/occupation (when AI comes and ‘steals all our jobs!’)

Herds and flocks can show us that there’s safety in numbers, and in that mass is a good place to be.

I’m not saying think like as sheep and always follow the pack.
I’m saying, appreciate that there’s no harm in being ‘buffered’ by your peers and accepting the safe setting of the middle.

4. De-stress to success

Driving and pushing yourself to achieve something is a laudable quality, and leads us generally to accomplishing our goals, but continually pressuring yourself to be arbitrarily ‘the best’ at something often feels (to me) to be counter-productive and puts you under unnecessary stress.

Setting yourself a goal and achieving it feels great.

Comparing yourself to other people continually does not.

Take that level of stress off yourself and you’re sure to feel better.

Another personal allegory:

One of my interests or hobbies over the last few years has been running, as an exercise (I’m sure we can get more into that later, too).

I don’t think that I am a ‘natural’ runner, but I keep forcing myself to do it and at times I even enjoy it.
I’ve met other people through work or similar who also run regularly or train for events. We’ve chatted about it once or twice and ‘follow’ each other on the fitness tracking app, Strava.

At times I’ve then found myself caught up in the stressful trap of comparing my overall paces or times for distances to theirs, and feeling disappointed when I’m not as fast. I’ve caught myself mentally pushing to go harder on a run because X person usually goes 5 seconds quicker or whatever, and I realise I’m not enjoying the activity at all. I’m just constantly beating myself up.

When DO I enjoy running?
When I can stop chasing other people’s goals and focus on my own – be proud that I’ve achieved X distance today, or just appreciate finding a good ‘groove’, listening to music I love, and spending time outdoors.

Ditch the stress, be the master of your own destiny and choose your own definition of success, not someone else’s.

5. A tasty centre

OK, this last one’s a bit silly, but isn’t the middle usually the best bit of food?

The hollow of a celebration cake filled with a surprise when you cut into it, the juicy filling of a pie, the perfectly-cooked centre of a roast or steak? (sorry vegetarians…)

I’m not really sure where the phrase ‘the upper crust’ of society came from to denote a higher status, but I’d certainly rather be the delicious, stewed apples rather than some dried out pasty – after all, no-one talks about their favourite recipe for crust pie…

Let’s summarise and conclude

I think, it’s a good thing to be in the middle of a pack, or be average at the things you do, as long as you can take something away from it and/or enjoy the experience.

In a world of over-exposure to other people’s lives and with a self-inflicted need to compete with what we see on social media, I think we could all benefit from shutting out that urge and really thinking for ourselves about what we are doing and why, then setting our own conscious goals and definition of success.

There are groups of people who would tell you we have become too ‘soft’ as a society; giving out participation ribbons for taking part and not encouraging people to be better, faster and stronger.

Likewise, there are those that would say we need to treat ourselves and each other as special, wonderful, unique entities no matter what we choose to do.

As you might expect by now, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle; yes we should encourage and look up to those of us that are ‘the best’ at a given thing, be it cooking or athletics or mathematics, but not every one of us can be ‘the best’ at something.

Therefore it’s OK to acknowledge our limits, set our own goals, and try to be a bit better in our own ways.
You CAN be the top in a given field, if you dedicate yourself to be – but there’s a lot of benefits to being a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ and being ‘average’ can feel pretty great too, if you let it.