What if you are just…Average? (GULP)

My therapist leaned a little forward in her chair and said in a hushed voice, “Megan…what if you are just… average?”

Instant rage. As she sat back in her chair, crossed one leg over the other, and met my gaze, I leaned forward. It took me a bit to be able to speak.

“I want to punch you,” I said with gritted teeth. “I cannot be average. I have to be special, or no one will like me. I have to be perfect or no one will love me. I have to do everything THE BEST or no one will respect me.”

And then I started to cry.

And once I was done crying, I started to laugh. I threw my head back as the weight of all that I HAVE TO oozed out of my skin, onto the floor, out the door, and sank into the earth.

Once I was done wiping the tears of both sorrow and laughter from my eyes, I blew my nose and said, “Tell me more about what it means to be average. I’m not sure I even know what that means.”

I’m the firstborn girl in my family. I have an older brother and a younger sister. I was raised by a boomer mother who desperately wanted to be told she could do anything all of her life, but was instead told to be a good wife and a good mom. She put all of her own hopes and dreams into her kids. And how lucky was I to have her in my life to tell me I could be the President of the United States when she helped me dress up for a school event as Susan B. Anthony. She told me I could be a Veterinarian when I decided that was my future, and she called the local vet and talked him into letting me volunteer so I could see if I really liked it. I was 12. I volunteered for a summer and learned that a vet doesn’t just sit around and snuggle critters all day. In high school, I struggled academically in ways that confounded her. She and her best friend Lee built a “Study Smarter, Not Harder” program for me and enrolled other challenged kids. I learned early on that I had to find the thing I was excellent at. How lucky was I to be loved like that and believed in so deeply?

Except somewhere along the lines, I thought I heard, “If you don’t find it, no one will love you.” When I was particularly good at something, I would double down. I was kind and loved everyone, so I looked away when people weren’t good to me, too. I loved to write and have kept a journal since I was a kid, so I decided to be a professional writer. I submitted one story to a high school journal, and when it wasn’t picked, I was devastated. I submitted ONE story. And then I wasn’t going to be a writer.

What I’d developed was the idea that being really good at something would be easy. If I kept striving for greatness, I’d find it just around the corner.

This idea that maybe I was average was quite possibly the most honest thing anyone had ever told me.

All of this swirled in my head as it began to dawn on me that there is a freedom in being average. I like average people. I don’t expect other people to excel at everything they do. Average gets the job done. “C’s get degrees,” I was once told in college.

What if I were average with most things in my life, instead of trying to be excellent at everything? What if average was the actual standard?

There is still a part of me that recoils a bit at the idea, and then there are multiple parts that feel relief and a sense of wonder at the idea. What room did it leave in my nervous system for other things if I wasn’t constantly running in every direction, striving for something?

In the past six months since my therapist said those words to me, I’ve discovered this:

Average means that I’m not going to be good at stuff. Other stuff I will be good at. The middle of that is average. I have permission to suck at things. It’s a long list starting with math and ending with making banana bread. I also have permission to be really good at things. It’s a shorter list, but a deeper one. I’m really great at strategic thinking. I am kind to myself now and allow myself to be not good at things. I tried painting. Terrible, even though my Dad is a professional artist. I tried running a marketing agency, and while I was good at it, I did not like it.

I also discovered that people love and even like me more when I’m not trying to be perfect. Or better than. Or excellent at. They like me for my goofy, playful, imperfect, average self. None of my friends have ever said, “Megan, I can only be friends with you if you are excellent at everything.”

Most importantly, the parts of myself that were convinced I must be excellent have settled down and relaxed, but are right there when I call on them. Can we spend just a few more minutes polishing something? Can we take a minute to check in on our assumptions about a conversation and not just assume we did it perfectly? Can we take a minute to feel in our body if we like doing something, even if we are good at it?

What better life is there than to be average?