Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Mediocre = Happy & Content

Humans are extremely social beings. What this means is that those who are closer to the average in smarts, skills, sensitivity are the ones with the highest chances for happiness and contentment in the socialized human life. Success and popularity is pretty much assured if you are slightly better than average. Not too much better. Just enough that you can do better than most average people and the average people can recognize that you are better than them.

If you are too far above the average, your efforts will be sabotaged by a system which tends to favor the average, and your effectiveness will be cramped by the average people who can't find resonance with you. If you are too far above average, you will not be appreciated or recognized simply because your efforts and ideas are beyond the comprehension, understanding and acceptance of the average majority. If you are too far above average, prepare to live a life of compromise (settling for less than best), frustration and daily defeats while you try hard to explain, convince and work with mediocre colleagues, bosses, friends, relatives and acquaintances, stuck in teams and social situations full of average pedestrians. And in the case of really unlucky geniuses - stuck for life with mediocre partners.

There are only a lucky few geniuses who -
  • possess the skills to beat the system which is stacked in favor of mediocrity and/or
  • whose success is so great that the world simply can't ignore them and/or
  • who manage to end up in places where they are surrounded by others of equal or greater evolution and/or
  • whose work and interests don't need much social interaction and recognition.

Even these lucky people may not avoid the daily compromises, frustration and defeats.

There must be a large number of 85-to-95 percentile people, who go through life frustrated and less than happy, being forced to live and work with the vast, oppressing majority of 45-to-75 percentile people. And the 76-to-84 percentile people? They are the lucky 'slightly above average' types who have a high chance for success and popularity, happiness and contentment.

2 comments:

  1. Its so, so nice to see you writing again! This is a great observation. I'm going to sit here and pretend this is my issue ;-) It will make me feel better about a few things ...haha.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You hit the nail on the head!
    S

    ReplyDelete

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