This is the first weekend of the semester. This is too, the first Saturday of the third year of my academic pursuit. Soon it will be over and off I go into a new chapter. Only last night, I was down with a cold and some light fever. On my bed, scrolling through random Facebook accounts I stumbled upon accounts of my former primary school English teacher, and some primary school acquaintances as well. And last night, like any other nights too, I can't help to reflect on my existence.
One of my routines everyday is to read some articles which I have found to be of a significant interest for the day. One of the joy in doing so is to, if you're lucky, come across a very, very significant article which coincide with your predicament. "In Defence of Being Average" written by Mark Manson, an American self-help author (not a big fan of the self-help genre, because I can help myself without others telling me what to do?) (haha) but his article is, for a guy who doesn't read much self-help books, delivered sense to me. What is average and above average? And how do we define both? The fact that to be beyond average takes time and practice and along the pursuit, we are all, pretty average. And we all got to live with that.
We have to come back to the real definition of normal. In a sense, what drives your everyday insecurities and emotional retaliation are all from, one of it, is the distorted definition of normal and average. The feeling of you having tried for too long and too much, the feeling of envy and ego over your assumed entitlement to be above average. Those feelings drives my pre-sleeping thoughts, and I don't want to think the same way anymore. My existence, though it's too early to sum it up and put it into lines of depressing sentences, so far, has been mediocre. This pursuit of becoming beyond mediocre, at times will bring us down to the deep pitfalls of hell (frustrations) and this will take a toll on you, spiritually, which in my worldview is pretty pertinent.
So I shall set my standards to what God wants for me. The other day, I had the privileged to met Dr. Megawati Moris, I dropped by her room after class for an uplifting, aimless chat (not that desultory actually, because no conversation will go that way when you're conversing with her). She says "Everyone nowadays tells you to take the road less travelled. If you ask me, I won't do that. This is my life, and I want to take the road that has been used up and often travelled. I don't want to take the chance".
Because to be above average, at times, will push you to "take the road less travelled". And you lose yourself along the way.