First coined in 1732, “average” originally meant the “proportionally distributed charge for damage at sea,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. That same dictionary defines today’s meaning of “average” as “a single value that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values.”
In other words, it’s the crowd, the industry, the marketplace, the Others. It’s the collective apples in the fruit bowl. The endless rows of corn in a field. The cargo containers on a ship. On the surface, everyone and everything looks the same or similar enough to lack true differentiation.
It’s that voice that keeps telling you to be one of us. It’s the society that expects you to blindly follow. It’s the generations before you who said to grow up, get an education, and get a steady job.
It’s from this collective which we try to differentiate.
Average is why we have mid-life crises. Suddenly, one day someone wakes up and realizes that they have spent half their life being Average. They have done what they have been told to do. They have been led by society. They have followed. They have obeyed. They have been a good soldier. Until now.
People in their mid-twenties also are waking up to the same reality. They realize that they are starting to pursue a life of Average. They have a quarter life crisis. And they are not going to take it anymore.
This is our ground zero. This is our baseline. This is our starting gate.
Welcome. Now, let’s get started.
QUESTION FOR YOU –
How do you define “average”?
SOMETHING FOR YOU –
For the first chapter of the forthcoming book Better than Average: Excelling in a Mediocre World, send an email to me and you score it for free!
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Todd Brockdorf
Better than Average Guy
Author, Speaker, Consultant
[email protected]
