Here is to the mediocre

There are so many people out there telling you to live your best life.  Strive for excellence!  Be your best!  I can't be more tired of them.  I was once told that the best thing I can do is find someone that inspires me and follow them for my own self improvement.  

Here is the problem.  In any group of anything there is what is known as the 80/20 rule.  It's just how everything measures out.  Take any bell curve and take the top 10% and the bottom 10% and what's left is average more or less.  If you look at people living their life.  They are doing whatever they can to make the best of it.  Sometimes people lie a little.  Sometimes they cheat a little.  Sometimes they make a fantastic effort.  Sometimes they champion a cause.  Sometimes they stay quiet.  They look at their life and think they should do more.  Social media makes people think that they should do MUCH more.  

I think social media makes people do much less.   Here is the problem.  If you post something on social media it is either by a subject:

    e.x. I really love movies so I will post all of my thoughts on movies.  I will become the movie guy.  

or by event:

    e.x. look I went on vacation!  

Most of the time people will only post the things that are extraordinary about their lives.   So you are looking at everyone else's extraordinary life not their normal life.  who want's to post normal?  As a result you are looking at the 10% of their lives through the lens of the 90% of your life.  All of your life will NEVER match up to 10% of other peoples lives.  When they show you all of the great flowers they've grown or the new car they bought or the fantastic vacation they went on.  They don't show you the days they just barely got up in the morning and the garden was kind of full of weeds that they ignored for that day.  They didn't tell you about how they are just barely holding it together at work.  They ignored the fact that they had to go into some serious debt to get a new car AND go on a vacation.  The truth is the hidden events of their life puts them into the comfy middle of the bell curve along with the rest of us. 

There are some exceptional people though.  There are even people that are exceptional in many areas.  In fact.  There is one person that is rich, smart, good looking, glib, and a whole host of other qualities that seem too numerous to mention.   There is one person that is empirically the best person for that time and there is one person that is the best person for all people.  I don't know who that is.  You likely don't know who it is.  In fact, they probably don't know they are the best person on the planet.  Because even at their best they are looking at everyone else's 10% if they are on social media (If they are THAT great they are probably smart enough to ignore social media completely).  There is also one person that is the worst person in the world.  No luck.  No accomplishments.  Nothing ever really worked out for them.  They likely don't know they are the worst but they might suspect it.   

In the end constantly comparing yourself to either person shouldn't change anything you feel about your own personal progress.  For every 'Well at least I'm not THAT guy' There is another 'I will NEVER be that good'.  The truth is both are immaterial.  Who cares?  Life is not a race, nor is it a competition.  Life is a struggle.  It is a struggle for material, for love, for understanding.  It is a constant struggle.  Motivators try to get you to believe you can be better and motivate you to do that.  However you shouldn't be motivated to do anything for a reason beyond the thing itself.  Anyone that says that change is good hasn't been around the earth this year.  Change is only good if it's your idea and you are the one executing it.  Looking at someone else pretending to live their best life is as much a lie as believing that just because you don't have the very BEST of something to offer means you shouldn't offer the best of yourself.  

The mediocre are those that get everything done.  By everything I mean the work of living.  The mediocre don't get everything done themselves but they do.  The mediocre are you and me.  Just see how much the excellent can get done without using the hands of the mediocre.  The excellent are the ones that will probably take credit for a lot of it.  The mediocre are the people that work at jobs that don't pay much and are not particularly satisfying.  Is there excellence in food services?  Is there excellence in warehouse work?  perhaps.  But those that are excellent move beyond that job into a more demanding job where they will once again be mediocre.  They will know people are better than they are at that job.  But the people just doing the job are the people that make everything work in the long run.  We celebrate excellence in sports.  But for every superstar, there is a support squad that bask in light that sometimes reflects off of the excellent.

Without the mediocre there are no excellent.  Michael Jordan is regarded as the best basketball player in history.  Ok.  So what if he was on the moon digging rocks alone.  Would he be excellent?  yes and no.  not only would he be the best but also the worst on the moon at literally everything.   What does this teach us?  That the competition is the illusion.  The individual struggle is real.  You are both the best and worst you can be at all times.  You are both a shining example and a grubby cast off.  You can accept both of them equally because it only matters what you think of what you do.  If you think you are the grubby guy just remember you are also the excellent guy.  The moment you think you are better than someone else for some reason, just remember you are also the grubby guy.  In a field of 1 we are all extremes and averages. In the end, most motivation to do things has a motivation itself.  Motivational speakers have built a business on making you feel like you aren't quite right where you are and should move to somewhere else in your life.   Often there are places in your life that you can improve.  But if you do improve, it should be for your own reasons and not some external motivation.  The truth is this:  Where you are is just fine and where you will be is also pretty good.