By definition, most people are average. Yet, many people can’t feel happy and content with “just” being average. We are led to believe that we should always want bigger, brighter, and more, more, more! After all, you want to be living your BEST life, right? Not an AVERAGE life!
There’s nothing wrong with being average. Average can mean you’re comfortable with yourself and your life. Is it okay to want more? Certainly. Should you feel pressured to constantly be trying to get more? Not so much.
That pressure largely comes from consumerism. Advertising, marketing, and salespeople use FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) to compel you to want more, so you’ll spend more. There are many good reasons to be happy with average, and here are a number of them.
1. You are under the radar.
A great thing about being average is that few people are paying attention to you. Yes, your successes may go unnoticed or underappreciated. However, best-selling author Mark Manson points out that can be a valuable trade-off when you realize that your failures may also go unnoticed. If you’re above average, there are higher expectations for you to do the right thing and succeed as people want you to.
Just to reiterate – people want you to succeed and fail in specific ways that are okay for them. They don’t necessarily care if you meet your own criteria; they’re more interested in you living up to their expectations because many people think that they just know better.
God forbid there are multiple people invested in your failures, either. You’ll get to hear how you screwed up over and over and over. I personally ran into this issue with content creation on a website I used to run. I made a wrong decision in how to present the material I was putting out, and the result was over a hundred emails about how I was wrong. Granted, I was wrong, but I didn’t need to hear it over a hundred times. Still, that’s the price you pay when you make a mistake in front of an audience.
2. Joy is easier to find in ordinary moments.
An average life can be full of simple pleasures that you can use to facilitate joy. It’s about a standard of expectations. If you’re okay that your life isn’t going to be a fairytale, you can sit down and truly appreciate something simple like a cookie or a sunrise. Acts of gratitude for these simple things cultivate joy and peace of mind.
Meanwhile, people in an exceptional position often have much higher standards for their happiness. They need the latest thing, or to have this magnificent experience, or to accomplish this big goal, so they can then feel happy. It keeps them on a treadmill of unreasonable expectations where joy can outpace them more easily.
It’s easy to overlook these simple pleasures when you’re constantly surrounded by bigger experiences.
3. You’re free to define success on your own terms.
Success means different things to different people. A person in the spotlight is under much greater pressure to conform to the expectations of the crowd. It may not matter as much in your personal life, where you can choose a different path with no repercussions, but it definitely matters in your professional life.
Psychology Today informs us that the perception other people, and even society at large, may have of what it means to be successful or not can force you down a path you don’t want to be on. You can certainly choose not to comply, but you will find that people push back against you constantly due to their own perspectives.
It’s exhausting to be stuck in a position where everyone expects you to meet those expectations. It’s also hard to escape without burning down everything you created around you.
4. You have more time to connect with others.
People living exceptional lives are often too busy when they start reaching the higher levels of success. Great success brings more responsibilities and work along with it to maintain that level. That takes up a whole lot of time that you may not want to give up. It can be a battle to carve out enough time to give yourself a break, let alone spend meaningful time with others.
Success at an exceptional level causes other people to put demands and expectations on your time and attention. It’s much harder to create the time and space to connect with people you want to, rather than the people you have to, so you can maintain what you have going on.
5. You don’t have to compromise as much.
People who are doing exceptional things often have to make compromises for their success that they don’t always agree with. They may not like what they need to compromise on to maintain that level of success and to continue meeting the high expectations.
Average people have much more flexibility because they are performing at a lower level. There’s more room for creativity, error, and the freedom to try again. Furthermore, if they do try something that doesn’t work out, they can more easily adapt and try a different approach without so many other expectations on them.
At the end of the day, average people can actually feel comfortable about what they’ve achieved and how, because they haven’t had to compromise on things that should never be compromised on, to attain it.
6. Stability is a blessing.
What we consider to be an average life is a blessed life that many others would hope for. It’s a luxury to have a roof over your head, food in your stomach, and safety. It’s a blessing to have friends and family who care. These average things don’t seem exceptional if you are busy looking at the extraordinary and wanting more.
We should all be so lucky and grateful if we do have an average life, with average things. Gratitude is one way you can grow to appreciate and find happiness in these things more. Every time you find yourself taking your life for granted, thinking about what more you want or who you’re unhappy with, take a few minutes to pause and think about what your life would be without them.
To someone out there, your “average” is their dream scenario. Take some time to sit back and reflect on where your life has come from and where you’re going. You may find that once you stop to think about it, it’s a dream for you, too.
After all, the safety and stability of “average” is not promised to everyone.
Final thoughts…
There’s nothing wrong with living an average life. If you’re dissatisfied, it may help to take some time to really think about all the benefits you have because of your average life. That way, you can develop a proper appreciation and gratitude for what you currently have.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting more out of your life, but you want to avoid making yourself miserable just because things aren’t how you hoped they would be. Happiness is the ability to appreciate everything you have, for better or worse, whether you have everything you want or not.
The quest for more! more! more! is a treadmill that never ends. It’s a treadmill that influencers, salespeople, and advertisers use to sell you little pieces of temporary happiness by making you feel like you’re missing out. You’re not missing out on anything.
