Extra Ordinary

“When did I go from being an extraordinary child to an average adult?”

My roommate said it, but I felt it. (We know not to plagiarize here.) A fear that first struck me during shopping week freshman year now gnaws at my mind at the open and close of each semester. Fast-talking, philosophy-quoting peers at the preliminary meeting of a humanities course—before I’ve gotten my section legs—engender in me a creeping sense of inadequacy. Final exams—reminders of my largely superior competition—bring it back once again.

I am average. I am ordinary.

The initial onset of this gut-wrenchingly awful feeling comes with an easy explanation. It does not take a genius—in fact, it only takes someone average and ordinary—to figure out that, while there was only room for one valedictorian in your high school class, you can barely stretch your arms out at this place without hitting one in the face. Oh, you served as editor-in-chief of your illustrious high school paper? So did the rest of your comp class. Take a seat. Recent not-so-breaking news of grade inflation only confirms these worries: Even at our best, we no longer rest easy so many standard deviations ahead of the curve.

We are average. We are ordinary.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, I’ve slowly but surely come to believe there’s a lot right with it.

The Harvard variation of a classic joke suggests that a student here needs no help changing a light bulb—not because he’s smart, but because he can simply stand still while the world revolves around him. Perhaps this misrepresents the bulk of the crowd that stands in the Tercentenary Theatre each year, about to walk out of Johnston Gate and into the real world. But many new matriculates enter the Yard having spent much of their young lives listening to parents and teachers sing their praises and declaim their brilliance. Some garner labels like “gifted” and later “honors,” and others bring home report cards studded with A after A after A-plus. The Harvard acceptance letter ices the cake. It ties shut the knot on each student’s balloon of an ego, a balloon that often needs a little deflating. Recognition of one’s relative ordinariness can do just the trick.

Coming to terms with being average, however, boasts more benefits than only the tempering of Harvardian hubris. If we reject the stigma attached to any term that does not suggest preeminence, we shed a heavy weight from our shoulders. “Gifted” and “honors” might initially evoke a pleasant, self-important feeling, but they also compel us to remain in the upper echelons of every single class, sport, club, and social group at all costs. Accepting averageness means relaxing for a moment. It means staying comfortably on the ground instead of wildly brainstorming ways to ascend every academic and extracurricular ladder in our paths.

It’s troubling that a word like “comfortable” can take on negative connotations here. Comfort does not necessary entail laziness or lack of ambition, both anathemas to the high achievers who stroll through these hallowed halls. Mostly, when it comes down to it, comfort goes a long way toward happiness. And happiness, in turn, goes a long way toward success. After all, we tend to like the things we do well.

We’re here for a reason. If we were remarkable before we came here, we didn’t become any less remarkable the day we turned in our freshman fall study cards. But madly striving to stand out can sometimes do more harm than good. Feeling like a failure can lead to over commitment, to stress, to near-breakdown, to more failure. It’s a vicious cycle, but also a breakable one. There’s an easy truth to embrace: We often do our best when we’re doing what we love. We do our best when we’re focusing on our passion for a hobby or activity or discipline rather than on where we stack up against our so-called competition. Basically, we do our best when we’re not worrying about being the best.

Ordinary scares us, but it’s time to stop being afraid. It’s when we start enjoying the ordinary that the extraordinary really begins.

Molly L. Roberts ’16, a Crimson editorial executive, is an English concentrator in Cabot House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays. Follow her on Twitter @mollylroberts.