I so hate averages,
and I so am one.
I was looking through Linked In yesterday, just responding to some messages, and I started looking at the faces staring back at me....
"President, CEO, VP, Director, Managing Partner, Senior Engineer, Project Manager..." the titles flow...
There are 1,800 (0.01%) companies with more than 10,000 employees in the US. 16,000 (0.08%) companies with more than 500 employees. Out of 18 million companies overall.
Thousands and thousands of companies...
Tens of thousands... Heck hundreds of thousands of executives.
When I do my triathlons, I am happy to get in the top 50%. It rarely happens. In the Columbia Triathlon there are 2,000 participants. I get top 50% on the run, and probably bottom 25% on the bike and swim.
I can take some pride in being 9th out of 47 in my age group at the turkey trot, and then I realize there are 7.6 million people who do 5ks in the US every year, and I am somewhere in the middle of that mass...
How many people are out there writing about mindfulness... Not sure but in Amazon there are almost 11,000 books for "mindfulness" and there are probably alot more bloggers... heck $10 Billion were sold in self help books last year... there are likely millions of books...
How many fathers are there with three kids, still in their 40s ;-), driving a four door sedan, coaching soccer, living in a 4 bedroom house in suburbia...
I want to be unique.
And, I am.
And, I am not.
It amuses me how my mind jumps between the two.
I see the faces staring back at me on Linked In... the proud, the peaceful, the pretentious, the pretty, the pissed-off, the practical, the private...
And, I smile.
I am small on this earth...
One of so many...
Slower, Dumber, Prouder, More Selfish, Lazier, Balder, Weaker, Funnier... than BILLIONS...
AND, Smarter, Faster, Wiser, Stronger than BILLIONS...
SO WHAT? WHO CARES??????
My EGO of course... And, my ambitious, authentic, striving self that wants to learn and provide and impact...
WHO CARES that we are AVERAGE in so many ways?
When we are SO EXTREMELY & CRITICALLY important to SOME?
When I try to find the right words with my wife, or my son, or a colleague... I wish I wasn't average... I wish I was masterful and magical with a power to heal, to envision, to empower, to embolden... BUT, I AM NOT... I am average.
And, I think the mastery and magic in being a human being is accepting that fully...
And, knowing that WE ARE NOT ALONE!
The beauty of being AVERAGE is that there are SO MANY people who
feel what we feel,
see what we see,
struggle with what we struggle,
rejoice in what we rejoice...
And, we can share with them...
There are SO MANY people that can empathize with us...
That can TEACH us...
That understand us...
Imagine a world where you didn't really GET all of those around you...
A world where you stood all ALONE in your ability to think, feel, experience...
What kind of world would that be?
I provide no new ideas through my words - just different interpretations...
Great songs and books - use all the sames notes and words - but create unique feelings IN US!
ALL of us are AVERAGE.... even the exceptional ones that we aspire or admire...
They excel at something and are average at so many other things...
EMBRACE being AVERAGE,
CELEBRATE being AVERAGE
And, feel the JOY of BEING...
of KNOWING that we are NOT ALONE...
THAT WE ARE UNDERSTOOD...
And, within that world... find those that SEE you... and build your life around them, with them, for them...
At the end of the day the similarity of our lives is overwhelming...
And yet our unique experience of joy, sadness... life in our averageness...
and THE unique experience that we can create and share in life with those we love...
is everything.
The FEELINGS that we can create in others can absolutely be unique...
So live your averageness and create and share feelings deliberately...
I so hate averages
and I so am one.
uniquely average and,
in harmony,
Nestor