Before
you start reading this topic, we want you to ask a few questions to yourself…..
- How do you feel
when you see on Facebook or any other social media about one of your
friend’s big achievement in studies or career?
- How do you feel
when you read something about some legends Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark
Zuckerberg, who did something exceptionally well in their life?
- How did you feel
when you got average marks in your exams or when you couldn’t qualify an
entrance or you couldn’t win a competition which was really important for
you?
- How do you feel
when your parents expect a lot of things from you and you also have a lot
of dreams but in reality, you are living a normal lifestyle?
In
most of the above cases, an average student compares themselves with others.
They feel inferior, they think a lot about their mediocrity and sometimes they
feel like a looser. Social media keep telling us that it’s not okay to be an
average student.
Now come to the topic and let’s discuss in our culture today how students are
divided into three different categories based on their academic
performance.
- The first category
belongs to low performer students. They do whatever they want to do in
their life.
- The second category
belongs to great performer students who do exceptionally well in their
studies, job, career and they also get a lot of attention from everyone.
People expect a lot of things from a great performer.
- The third and last
is the average student category who lies between both of the above
categories or for some people they are called as mediocre students.
When it comes to successful people, in most of the
cases best students get a great job, great lifestyle and get a lot of attention
and respect from others. Worst students or low performers in most of the cases
start doing business because they have no option left for their career. They
don’t have fear of failure so for money, in desperation, they also do
exceptionally well in their life. Average students live a decent or normal
lifestyle and somewhere keep going on with better opportunities. Parents have
expectations from them, they compare themselves with others, and in whole life,
and they try to make their life a bit better than average. Somewhere they have
fear of failure and most of the time they avoid to take a risk in their life.
They accept the situations and get comfortable with the things whatever they
have.
All the above categories we have considered based
on the marks of the students and their performance in studies. Now here we need
to understand that we all are born with different aptitudes and every student
has different capability to grasp the things. We can better understand and
categories students through the Bell curve. People who are
working in the corporate sector may have knowledge about the Bell curve or
normal distribution for performance rating and appraisal. It’s easy to
understand the bell curve and differentiate students’ performance through the
curve.
If
there are n number of students in a class then we can represent their
performance for how good they are in studies through the horizontal axis of the
Bell curve. We can categories students based on their academic performance
through this curve. This curve is very thin at both ends, where left side
represents there is less number of the student whose performance is very low,
the right side is also thin which represent there are very few students whose
performance is exceptionally good. Majority of the students fall in the
category of average or we can say in the middle of the curve. Their performance
is neither too bad nor too good. We can apply this curve to the categories of
students.
Now
the question is…Is it okay to tag a student an average student, poor
student or a great student in studies considering only the academic learning or
marks in their examination?
We need to understand that every student has their
own strength and weakness and the fact is we all are average at something, poor
at something and exceptionally good at something. Students who are
exceptionally good in studies are below average in most of the other things.
It’s a universal fact that everything comes at some cost. Consistency, time and
energy these three things are very important to be exceptionally good. In most
of the cases celebrities, brilliant entrepreneurs or extraordinary student’s
life is messed up in other things. We can take the example of Apple’s
co-founder Steve Jobs. We all admire him and some of us have a dream to become
like him. But behind his success story, there is a dark side. Steve managed to
have less friends, he had several issues in his own family, his health was also
compromised and he admitted this too in his last statement.
Why
it’s okay to be an average student?
It’s true that an average student does not get
recognition like great performers and our daily life is filled with information
about great performers coming from the extremes of the Bell curve. All of the
students cannot be exceptional and none of the magazines is going to make a
list of average people or their lifestyle. Most of us reside in the middle of
the above curve but we cannot ignore the beauty of simplicity which can be only
found in average people. Average people love simple things like family,
friends, and the roof over the head. Extraordinary people have too much
pressure from society and they work endlessly to fulfil the expectations of
others. Today our culture also makes us believe that everyone needs to do
extraordinary things in their life and being average has become a new
definition of a failure person. If you think in-depth if everyone will become
extraordinary then no one will be an extraordinary person so being
average is just a state of mind nothing else.
Some
people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have
mediocrity thrust upon them.
-Joseph Heller
So
don’t we try to become extraordinary?
Definitely, we all should try to do the best in our
life as much as we can. Being an average student is not a sin but pursuing
mediocrity is also not a good thing and we need to understand that life is not
about running in a rat race. Most of us believe that life is only worthwhile if
you are a great person or exceptional at something, but we need to see the
other side as well. You will always feel like a failure if you put efforts
continuously being more successful than everybody else. You will always find
someone else doing something better than you, you will always compare yourself
with others, you will have constant pressure, stress, anxiety and these all
things may lead you at a dark place in your life. The pleasure of being an
average student, average people is also amazing. You cherish the moments in your
life, you help someone in need, you do something you care about and you live a
healthy lifestyle. In the end, ask one question to yourself…
Is it really bad to be happy with small things?
Average people or students are also great. It’s
just, they don’t get noticed and recognition.
