Monday, 12 March 2018

Being Average



                                                                 Being Average
We all look forward to the first day of the week, Sunday to provide us a break from the daily routine,  starting from 5.30 in the morning till late at night with no fixed time set to roll into bed.  I love Sundays for those extra ten minutes in bed in the morning, unmindful of the thud of the newspaper falling, the barking of the black dog opposite our apartments that is allergic to anyone on two wheelers(all the newspaper vendors and the milkman come in bikes) and  the sing song cry of the kabbadiwalla. Those ten minutes are heavenly bliss as I snuggle under the bed sheet (even more in winter under the cosy blanket) wishing those ten minutes to be eternal. 
What is ironic is once out of bed, Sunday turns out to be the most hectic day of the week. The weekly cleaning, washing and ironing, preparing special Sunday dish, catching up on missed calls and responding to piles of e-mails that had remained unread for a week and above all  reading Sunday newspapers and the supplements leave me ( I don’t think it is an exaggeration if I substitute ‘me’ with ‘us’) any time to blink before the day is over.

Yet I wait for Sundays, more so for the newspaper supplements that cater to readers with colorful pictures, astrological predictions, juicy tidbits, and art of living. This morning I glanced through one of the leading newspaper supplements proffering wise tips for living life” average size’, with its catchy byline “  rev up your life” and my eyes at once riveted on  an interesting homily on ‘Being average’ . It was an article that provided comfort to me( and to all ‘me-likes’) as it short circuited our efforts to hide our being average. It was a great relief that instead of concealing one’s mediocrity, one acknowledged it and gained in stature for being average. With feigned modesty it makes us  proudly say “not for me the rat race. I would rather be average than chase a mirage unlike my parents who had damaged themselves in a of envy-spending their lives in a hamster wheel.”  One is applauded for such honesty, such humility and self deprecation. This is the irony of modern life where being average gains an equal or perhaps a higher status than striving for excellence.

Deep within I knew that this is the easiest way to evade any challenge that life continually
springs forth in our daily activities without being criticized. A laid back attitude is easy to follow than to be a productive individual. It needs a lot of self determination to stand out or be someone, be original and not a copy of another. To move with the flow demands very little exertion; to go counter to the flow and that too in a distinct manner is a challenge to one’s mind, intellect, will, strength and time. It is natural for most of us to sit back and enjoy someone else steering us through life. To take to the wheel involves concentration, responsibility and mental alertness and physical effort. The world needs its people to be more than average in respect of the talents they have been born with and skills they have acquired through training and education. To take umbrage in pseudo greatness of being average is a failure to rise to one’s potential. If the world has over many millennia progressed significantly, the credit goes not only to the innovators in science, technology, industry, medicine, entrepreneurship, but it is due to the assiduous and diligent application of many workers to make the innovations available to the society.
Innovations are key to the betterment of society.  I recall my brother citing Schumpeter who  had coined  the phrase ‘creative disruption’ as basic to move the world beyond its present state. Schumpeter’s eloquent expression ‘creative destruction’ is a process in which the sudden displacement of the old by the new takes place. It highlights the primacy of Innovation for long term economic growth. One has seen the emergence of automobile industry displacing the earlier transportation through horse led carriages.  We now see the postal service upended by email, telephones by smartphones which also have replaced television, newspapers and books. Schumpeter’s  ‘creative destruction’  endorses  radical Innovation through a disruption with the past. 
With the fast moving age and faster moving technology, being average can no longer be a desirability, leave aside its possibility. This hyped slogan of wanting to move away from rat race has served us well for nearly five decades- from the days of the flower children of 1968- to delude us and revel in being average. The present day youth hooked to Facebook, Selfies and net related activities is a reflection of its acceptance to remain average without striving for anything. Being average is solipsistic; it is nothing but a glorification of being mediocre. It is wrong to impute an ideal of not wanting to run the rat race. Time we call the bluff of being average and revitalize ourselves to rise to our full potential.


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