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That’s so mid: Why being average and boring is the ultimate flex
Those perfect lives on social media are a scam. In reality, 5/10 folks are cooler and happier than 10/10s
Scroll through Instagram, and it seems like everyone is living the perfect life. Except you. Influencers have spotless, minimal-chic apartments, while your chairs hold piled-up laundry, and your sink is filled with dishes from the day before. They fit in ice facials, Pilates, 10-step skincare, and green smoothies before 9am. You, meanwhile, are scarfing down instant coffee as you race to work.
At work, someone’s smashing sales. Friends are out-earning, out-yoga-ing, out-dating you. It’s like school all over again. Being average feels like being an embarrassing failure.
Science is now backing what we, sprawled on the sofa doomscrolling at 2am, have long suspected: Being average is absolutely fine. It might actually be amazing. Hear us out.
Most people are average. Roughly 65% of people fall in the average range for intelligence, creativity, happiness and memory, says organisational psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic in a 2017 column titled, The Upsides Of Being Average, in Psychology Today. So, you’re not broken. And there’s a good chance those perfect-looking folks on Insta are actually average too.
Perfectionism is a scam. Long-term research shows that perfectionism doesn’t necessarily lead to better grades, fatter paychecks or happier lives. What it does fuel is anxiety, fear of failure, and the inability to enjoy small wins. Worse, it’s often linked to narcissism. Remember American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman? Peak perfection. Also, a serial killer. Thomas Curran, in his 2023 book The Perfection Trap, says that today’s pressure to be exceptional all the time is messing us up. Society demands we excel in everything – studies, work, relationships, looks, even cooking dinner for one. Trying to high-score everything brings on depression, anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem, eating disorders and burnout.
Life is BTS. Here’s your reminder that Insta perfection is staged. Filtered. Cropped. Photoshopped. Everyone’s got their own messy laundry chair and sink full of dirty dishes. Curran points out that perfectionism fuels consumerism. If we always feel not-good-enough, we’ll keep buying – skincare, supplements, gym gear. Scroll long enough, and you’re bound to feel bad about something. The product is waiting.
The payoff isn’t real. We bought into the hustle. We chased good grades, a good job, the working weekend, the spending cycle. All it’s got us is stress. Everything is still too expensive. We’re raising plants instead of kids. The math is not mathing.
So, if anything, being average might actually be an act of rebellion.Check out the other side of Insta: #NormCore #MakeUnder #NoFilter #BasicBitch. It’s where the fed-up gather to normalise being average. Being ordinary seems scary. But as Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, puts it: “Once you drop the pressure to be special, you’re finally free to do what you want”. Turns out, what most of us want is not yachts but soft L-shaped sofas. Not shiny mason jars but food we’re craving in the moment. Not 20 serums but two that work. Not ransom-level wealth, but enough to slow the treadmill down for a bit.
The Danish idea of hygge is pampering yourself with scented candles and fuzzy socks. Japanese Ikigai reminds you to eat slowly, water your plants, and call your grandma. TikTok’s “romanticise your life” trend urges you to enjoy a simple sunrise or a solo bookstore date. They all boil down to the same thing, don’t they?
That the magic is in the average.
From HT Brunch, April 26, 2025
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