Don’t Be Average – Don’t Accept Society’s Blueprint For Your Life

Listen to the audio version of this article – I talk about a few things not included in this article.

This will be a rambling podcast/article – it’s a collection of several half-written out ideas I’d thought I’d throw together and finally flesh out a bit.

I’ll start you off with a single idea: Most people are comfortable/complacent and don’t ever stop to think about what they want from life. They just do what everybody else is doing, for the sole reason of: “Everybody else is doing it.”

Sure, everybody else is doing it. That’s because everybody else is average. Here’s what average looks like:

Fuck average. Fuck “normal”. Fuck doing what everybody else is doing – that’s a one-way ticket to a mediocre, average life.

People go to university, just because everybody else is doing it. People fall into relationships with people they’re not that into, just because everybody else is doing it. People settle for a marriage that has a greater-than-50%-chance of divorce, just because everybody else is doing it. People have kids without even stopping to think, “Do I want kids? If so, what kind of parent do I want to be? How can I find a partner who’ll be a great mother to my kids?”

To be clear, I’m not saying marriage, kids, starting a family are goals you shouldn’t go for. In fact, those are some of the most rewarding things you could do in life. But make sure you actually want those things, and aren’t just doing them because “That’s what everybody else is doing!” Life’s too short to blindly follow along with other people. After all, most people are totally full of shit and have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about:

And if you do want those things – marriage, kids, a certain career, etc – decide you’ll be the absolute best at each one of those goals. Go 100% all-in and crush everyone around you. If you want kids, be the best motherfucking father the world has ever known. If you want marriage, go all-in and decide you’ll build the most kickass, most rewarding marriage on the planet, and then do whatever the fuck it takes to make that a reality.

Don’t hold back.

Those who aren’t willing to go 100% all-in and do whatever it takes to be happy/successful; we call those people “average”. And is the average person happy – I mean truly, wonderfully, beautifully happy? Of course not. Not even close. Henry David Thoreau said it best:
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

The average person is complacent, lazy, comfortable… god I shudder at that word. Comfortable. As if there’s nothing more to achieve, no next hurdle to overcome, no next mountain to scale. “Comfortable” is another way of saying, “I’ve given up.”

And I get why the average person is happy being complacent – it’s easy. It’s secure. The path is already laid out for you; you just have to follow it. Find an average-looking woman, have average-looking kids, be average with your health and average with your career, die at an average age and have an average number of people attend your funeral. None of that is hard; it kinda just happens with absolutely zero effort.

In contrast, pushing yourself is fucking hard; it takes a hell of a lot of effort. We’ve set some crazy goals for ourselves here – stuff the average person could never even contemplate, let alone be arrogant (and ballsy) enough to actually attempt. Make no mistake; If you’re into self-improvement, you’re playing life on hard mode.

But do you have any other choice? I mean YOU, the person reading this right now. Are you the type of person who can just be average and do whatever everyone else is doing just because it’s easy? I certainly can’t. I don’t want to get to my deathbed, regretting the things I didn’t do, the goals I didn’t even bother trying to achieve. I don’t want to get to the end and know I could have done more, had more, been more…

The whole point of this article – and the podcast you should have already listened to above (go back and listen to it) – is to get you to sit down and think about what you truly want. Your future is something you should do because you planned to do it; not something you just “fell into” because everybody else was doing it. Pick the goals you want to achieve. Be the person you want to be.

I’ve already mapped it out for you, and shown you everything you need to do. Go read this and do the exercises in it, right now:

• Questions to Ask Yourself if You Want an Awesome Life

Those exercises will help you start thinking about what you actually want from life, who you are, who you want to be. They’ll stop you being average.

The average person sucks. Don’t be the average person, unless you want to be full of regrets when you start getting old. I want you to be able to embrace old age full of peace, knowing you lived the life you chose, did the things you wanted to do, instead of just doing what everybody else is doing.

I’ll leave you with a great song I love – Ready to Start by Arcade Fire.

“All the kids have always known
that the emperor wears no clothes.
But they bow down to him anyway.
Because it’s better than being alone.”

SHOWNOTES:

Questions to Ask Yourself:
https://killyourinnerloser.com/questions-to-ask-yourself

Society is Lying to You About Everything:
https://theinnerwinnershow.com/51/

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