Being Average Isn’t Such a Bad Thing.
A long, long time ago on a website not so far away, some randy on the internet named eccentricemmie wrote a blog entry called “We Are All Gifted in Some Form or Another” and published it on medium.com.
Well, now that I got the arbitrary Star Wars reference out of the way, let’s talk about the topic in hand. I would copy the intro from that blog word-for-word, but again… you can read it yourself. In case you don’t want to read it, though, here are some bullet points for your laziness.
1904: French government asks a psychologist to develop an intelligence test to predict a schoolchild’s academic success.
1916: American psychologist from Stanford adapted the test for adults. It was not used in the way French psychologist wanted, but instead used to test new immigrants and lead to eventual limits on immigration. It became popular with racists like Nazis (i.e. eugenics and genocide).
Many people hate the IQ test because it only tests academic intelligence instead of other forms. There are eight forms of intelligence. Therefore, we all could be intelligent in some capacity.
“Emily, do you still believe all of that?” you might be asking. My answer is, “Of course.” I still believe that everyone is gifted in some form or another, but I also believe there’s a limit. After all, nobody can be gifted at all times. There’s a quote in that article I wrote that I would like to bring up again. I think it goes something like-
“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
It’s a commonly repeated quote for a reason. And again, I’ll quote myself here: You can’t judge a fish’s intelligence by how well it can climb a tree just like you can’t judge a monkey’s intelligence by its ability to breathe underwater. The fish may be gifted due to its ability to breathe underwater, but it has an inability to climb a tree. The monkey’s situation is similar. Who knows? Maybe those animals are just average at those skills. After all, there’s a time and place for giftedness. Nobody can be skilled at all times, and even then, nobody can be gifted at everything. Like I said before- there are eight forms of intelligence.
For example, I’ve always been considered gifted in the arts… at least, my family and teachers call me gifted when it comes to writing and drawing. And that might be true, but what I do know is that I wasn’t always gifted. I had to work at improving my skills. Once upon a time, I wasn’t a good writer or artist. In fact, I was terrible. Even though I’ve improved a lot in both areas, I still have a long way to go. Who knows? Maybe I’m just an average writer/artist, or I could even be below-average. We can’t all be winners, you know.
That’s how it is when it comes to all competitions. I’ve competed in several art competitions in my city, yet I’ve never won a single one of them. The closet I’ve ever gotten to winning was in tenth grade when I placed second for a realistic portrait I had drawn. Even though I was always disappointed every time I didn’t win, I was very excited when I was told of placing second. It was the only time I was ever successful in any competition.
That’s just how competitions are, though. I’m going to bring up Eurovision as an example of this. If you don’t know, I love Eurovision. I’ve written about it three times, and I have to say that 2021 was an incredibly strong year- both for the adult contest and the kid’s version. A lot of people said that the songs that got last place were robbed- the United Kingdom for the adult version and the Netherlands for the kid version. And well… at least Ayana got some points for her performance. The same can’t be said about James Newman, though…
Ouch… four countries got zero points from the televoting; James Newman didn’t even get a single point from the juries! But hey, you gotta give these singers some credit for taking their nul points like champs, especially James. We can’t all be winners; somebody’s gotta come in last place. And, like last place, somebody’s gotta place in the middle of the scoreboard. That doesn’t make somebody a bad person, that just makes them average.
And really, what’s so bad about being average? Sometimes, average is the best result somebody can come up with, and as long as we do our best, isn’t that what really matters? I personally think that being the best version of ourselves is the best possible outcome, even if it means being average. That’s what the whole world is made of- average people. Average people work at the fast food restaurants, serving our food, they work as secretaries or truckers or any other ordinary job nobody really wants to do, and that’s a good thing. The world needs average people because, if there wasn’t any, our society would probably crumble.
Now, that’s not me saying not to improve because we can all do that. We all need to strive to be the best version of ourselves. I’m just saying that, for many people, average is the best result. There are winners, there are losers, and there are those who place in the middle. We’re not as gifted or special as we think we are. I know I’m not. Who knows? Maybe I’m the worst writer in the world, or maybe I’m just average. And you know what? Being average isn’t such a bad thing.
