Are you average, or great?

[1wokeuplikethis]

I’ve always wanted to be great at things, but have come to the realisation that I’m not actually very amazing at anything. But can do lots of things at a basic level.

Average weight/height/size
Average salary/job
Average house
Average cars
Average fitness
Average cook

I am so average at so many things and even when I take up new things, I never really excel at anything. I’d love to be GREAT at something.

Things that I’m quite good at: driving, making friends, my sport, reading, planning stuff (house admin), booking holidays.

But I’ve never solved a cold case, ran a marathon, got promoted. Heck, I struggle to keep a plant alive.

I just wonder what it might feel like to be amazing at something. Like a great singer. Or have an amazing garden. Or be a surgeon. Or have great general knowledge.

Is anyone else distinctly average, or if not, what are you great at and how does that feel?

Im not very good at cleaning, or interior design, or sticking to a diet either…

I’m great at a couple of things. Both highly specialised and work-related, so I hardly ever talk about them.
Average at most. Average looking. Average number of friends. Average wealth given level of education.

I’m also unusually, shockingly shit a quite a few others, which it sounds as if you aren’t. I’m a TERRIBLE cook. I’m TERRIBLE at remembering people’s names. Also at staying in touch with people, even very good friends, who have moved abroad. I’m much more disorganised than the average working mum. My car (only place my cleaner doesn’t clean) is vile.

Nothing wrong AT ALL with being average.

I excel at drinking wine. Everything else I’m pretty mediocre at. I’m pretty content with my life though - although that’s probably down to aforementioned wine.

I'm average at most things. Below average for height. I'm amazing at nothing. Doesn't really bother me. Hasn't held me back!

I'm quite good at organising: I'm like Judith Chalmers and book all flights, best restaurants, tickets into Reichstag etc, for when group of mums go away.

You could try being really shit at something to bring down your average average? I'm shit at wrapping presents. It's quite fun.

The only non average thing about me is my height, I’m 5’10” (female). I probably earn more than average but I live in London so I’m skint anyway 😂. I’m an average driver, cook, employee, parent. I’m a great friend I think.

I’m shit at wrapping presents too! In fact, my shitness in this area is considerably above average.

When I was at school I was known for my maths ability - I used to be the only one in my school who would win cash prizes in an annual nation wide maths competition. Even at my 20 year high school reunion someone who I was not friends with at school came up to me and said, "Oh I remember you, you were the maths brain."

However I didn't realise until I went to university and decided initially to try a non-mathematical field where I was distinctly average, just how much of my identity was tied to being smart. It's something I hadn't consciously thought about before but I had to come to realise that what I was good at wasn't actually a big part of who I am.

Sounds to me like you're a good all rounder OP. Nothing wrong with that.

Also since you have lots of friends, you are clearly very good at being a friend/very likeable and they are very good things to be in life.

Nothing wrong with being “average” or an all-rounder.

I think I confused people with what someone has called my “very uneven pattern of attainment” growing up and even now as an adult.

I can’t drive but have written multiple books which have been traditionally published, and been featured in the guardian etc.

Can’t do flatpack furniture assembly or change a lightbulb, but might win a general knowledge quiz.

Struggle with directions and organisation but yet have relocated and lived abroad solo twice.

It’s led some people to think I’m taking the piss when I claim I can’t do certain things which is annoying and was really upsetting as a kid. But over the years I’ve found my people who get me!

I’m super grateful for all the abilities I have, but also I’d like to be able to do some of the “normal stuff” that comes fairly easily to other people but so hard for me! I am still working at it :)

I reckon if you manage to be consistently average across all the different areas you mention op, you’re pretty great at life!!

I’d say I am great at a couple of very, very niche things; I’m a really creative person so have a few specific interests that I do very well at. BUT. To the complete detriment of all the other areas of life where I am pretty shambolic!!!

my MIL once told me ‘everyone is gifted and robbed’ - Very wise words!! Xo

Average weight/height/size: 72.8kg, 162cm, size 16
Average salary/job: £34,000 (average savings £16,067)
Average house: valued at £299,331 (average mortgage debt £136,510) and between 85 and 100 m^2
Average cars: harder to determine, the Ford Puma is the highest selling new car. And the average number of cars per household is 1.2 so if you have more than one you are above average
Average fitness: 90 minutes of moderate physical activity each week
Average cook: impossible to quantitate.

Still feel average?

I’m great at a few things.

i am also completely shit at a lot of things. It evens out to average.

i can’t run or hop and I can only walk short distances. My fine motor skills are shit.

i am good at maths and general knowledge.

Haha I was saying this to DH the other day! I have no talent or skills I am so average! My sister can sing so well and play the piano, my parents are so sporty and I’m just ok at everything (and a terrible singer!).

His response was you’re amazing at your job, you’re a great mum, you’re fun and have loads of friends and are an amazing host. You make the home cosy and lovely and are decent at everything which is good enough. But yes I’m average Joe!

I’d consider myself very average….although I’ve run 4 marathons and do manage to keep plants alive 😂

I take comfort in being entirely ordinary. No pressure to impress people and I can just potter about doing my own thing most of the time

I prized myself on being a generalist at school, and to some extent at work. But my parents were deeply odd so I had a hankering to be 'normal'. Now I am struggling as I don't know what my 'thing' is.

Mostly average and below in some areas. The one thing I am great at though is being a Mother - DC 21 & 22 and a pair of fantastic humans that I raised alone. Love them to bits.

I've always been told I'm a great eater. That could be why the only thing on your list I'm above average on is my weight. Average is just the middle point of a bell curve so more people should be near the average, that's why it's used as a measurement. You could always try learning something new that very few other people learn, ideally those who do give it up quickly, and then you're more likely to be great at it; run the best wild rat rescue sanctuary, grow the tallest patch of nettles, greatest empty loo roll crafter, best triangle player...

We're all unique. No one person is the same as us. So nobody is ACTUALLY average. Because our uniqueness isn't average

I’ve noticed on Mn that there’s a tendency to think that, for instance, being very intellectually high-achieving means you have to have a deficiency elsewhere, like in your social skills or common sense. Every time there’s a thread about academic intelligence, it’s full of of people falling over themselves to claim to know professors who can’t tie their own shoelaces or remember to pick the children up from school.

It’s nonsense, of course. If you’re a senior academic these days, you’re not creaking about an ivory tower, you’re running research projects with staff, budgets, requirements for public dissemination of the research etc.

I’d love to be great at something. I play guitar horrendously badly, I draw and paint but every other picture comes out crap, I used to write creatively but I’ve become blocked and just can’t seem to get past it…

I suppose I’m ok at yoga and quite fit. But I’m the type that can run a 10k, but will come last, behind the fellas dressed as sumo wrestlers and just in front of the litter pickers.

I’ve not read the whole thread, so maybe someone has already said this, but I think most people are quite good at most things, and then there’s some people who are exceptional at somethings and very bad at a lot of others. It’s often the result of neurodiversity. So, I earn in the top 1 percent, and have a couple of exceptional abilities, but I can’t do basic maths, am a terrible driver, can’t spell, and am generally poor at process.

this is because I have dyslexia, dyscalculia and adhd, - they come with high EQ, problem solving and people skills, but a lot of other things are v hard.

Oh @tigerbalmshark- I think I’ve just gone against your point. I hadn’t read it when I wrote that. I don’t think it’s as simple as saying most people with PHDs are hopeless, but there are certain jobs that allow those people either a mix of high strengths and high weaknesses to still have value. For example a lot of people with adhd and dyslexia do well as entrepreneurs because of the problem solving, verbal skills and vision, but also because they can avoid doing the things they’re bad at like following processes or spelling or whatever, cause they can get other people to do that

I’m really great at being average!

I am great at a particular sport, or at least I was. World ranked top 5. Full international honours etc. It wasn’t much at the time, as everyone around me was doing similar, that’s the crowd I was in. Since then though it has kind of held me back, I’m average at everything else and it is very obvious to me from the off. My early success is hard to live up to, iyswim. It turns out I’m much more intelligent than I thought, I wish I’d used that more and been more confident in my career.

Would I change that… no. I look back at those days and they’re amazing, truly. I got so much from them, travelled and lived across the world and winning is a great thing! I never tell a soul irl, but if they find out they’re amazed, always a million questions. I get a thrill from people looking at little old me and realising I’m more than the quiet middle aged woman they see in front of them, but then things go back to normal, lol