I personally am only for working as hard as I can and trying to progress in my career. I am not married and broke up with someone recently. So I'm for finding another special women or meeting women in general and having fun. I work out. I like to have fun. I have friends.

YES, when and if I have kids, my life will change A WHOLE LOT! At that point, it won't be all about ME! I'll have to worry about my wife, my kids--and probably my mother at that point who will need a lot of my help.

I USED TO be more of an intellectual, but not much anymore. To the point where people have told me, "You used to be so deep, and know about so many different subjects, and be so well versed on all sorts of stuff." I don't know if this is regression, although I have matured a great deal in the past few years--ESPECIALLY in the past year. Part of this was because of dating a 37 yr old woman.

But for now, I don't concern myself with so much aside from my career (money), women, health, and relatives (the last two go without saying for most people). I don't care to discuss deep shit, don't care for self help books, and don't care for QUOTES of giants in history that most of us can't relate to.

Ah, I became a shallow dude.

The funny thing is when I became LESS ambitious in the gym--going from recreational bodybuilder to "in shape" guy--I started meeting so many more women and made some more friends.

This thread is mediocre, as is your book long posts.

Since The Shit* decided to revive this thread I thought I'd mention some mediocre men in my life at the moment, as well as one who is not so mediocre.

Keep in mind these are friends I've had since junior high/high school, and they haven't changed much in their lives over the past 2 years.

1. 24. Works a regular 40 hour week. Good pay. Has basically no hobbies, but constantly has complaints about life, even though he is doing fine (i.e. good social life, steady girlfriend, great living conditions with his parents). Very skinny and wants to gain weight, although he won't train/eat for it. Doesn't try to change anything yet complains hoping something will give somehow.

2. 24. Works 40 hours with decent pay. Idea of a good time is playing video games. No hobbies/passions. Still a virgin. Horrible social life, no SO, lives in what is basically his parents closet. Doesn't make any sacrifices for change, yet he will still bitch about how bad things are for him. Severely overweight and wants to lose it, won't change diet or add exercise.

3. 25. EMT. Has an on/off relationship with a few different girls. Always up for a good party/drinking night, although they all end with him getting shitfaced. Supportive family/living conditions in an upscale neighborhood with his folks. Complains about his job, and his status, and physique. Passion in life includes "banging" girls left and right to the point where he got an STD. Doesn't do anything to better his situation.

There's more but I'll leave it at these three for now.

My non mediocre man of the month/year

29. Store manager. Seeking long-term relationship. Hobbies include science, sports, nature, cars, and training. Lives with a couple of roommates. Doesn't complain except for when the shit hits the fan i.e. "My car broke down". Was an athlete during High School and college. Always seeks to better himself/his knowledge.

*shiznit is basically slang for shit

Hm. Don't know if I count as "mediocre" or "striving to better myself" -- probably something in the middle -- but I wouldn't have anything to look forward to if I had no expectation of my life getting better over time. Some people can be content with a little but I seem to need a lot. I would like to matter -- not in a "do my bit for society" way but in the "world expert in X" way. I've faced fewer challenges than most -- it's not insane that I should want better outcomes than most.

I try not to look down on anybody at all, though.

old forum but wanted to put my opinion in on the topic of eugenics... it would not matter in todays day and age if we did this genes arent expressed through simply my parents were this so i am this. the enviroment created for you while in the womb via chemical bombardment from food, medicine ect will lead to just as many defects in high class as it would in low class.

same wit the ambition and growth of a child in the early stages of life if they are told they cant, ignored and not feed well, eventually those lessons will become so engrained in the kid it will become extremly hard for them as an adult to accept any other reality. didnt read about half the post so my bad if someone already said this

I just wanted to say I fucking love T-Nation for combining forums that discuss topics like this and also talk about anything and everything training related

So that's why I'm still single. I thought I had an odour problem, that's a relief!

For me mediocrity ended when I found this site, which lead me to Stormthebeach's "death to fitness" which lead on to Jamie Lewis's CHaOS and Pain ranting which opened my eyes to the fact that I have not been living up to my potential. I have read more, studied more, become much more consistent and trained harder over the last four years than in the previous 7. I have moved 2 degrees beyond mediocre because of this.

Fuck Mediocrity- Sprint Kill Eat and lift something (or someone) HEAVY : )

Alright, I have wrestled with temptation long enough:

Guy looks like a lamer, not gonna watch the clip.

What about us who strive to be worse than average?

Hmm an excellent thread.

Maybe tailed off at the end.

Maybe I should read T-Nation more.

[quote]orion wrote:
Alright, I have wrestled with temptation long enough:



Watched the clip, it's more a comedy video in terms of intent.

The sad part is that where I live there are way too many folks who think like the attitudes expressed in the video: that everyone
should be equal and settle for mediocrity and we're gonna fuck you over if you try to stand for anything better than the mediocre norm.

Be that as it may I wouldn't put too much stock in what Margaret Mead has to say. She's well known for being a joke to anyone who seriously studies anthropology in an objective way.

yeah the samoans didn't know violence, yeah societies existed where traditional gender roles were reversed, she made this giant habit of lying and over-exaggerating differences between human cultures. They knew violence with clubs and stoning people to death, the society with gender role reversal was based on men wearing make-up, that they only wore after they had achieved the status of men, which was probably the makeup you could only wear after doing X to become a man, like probably killing a man, or putting your hand in an ants nest.

On the same hand, whatever she means by mediocre is questionable. The more fertile women are the more they prefer certain signs of fertility in men, like masculine qualities, deep voice, square chin, even how cocky/condescending they act to their peers.

Mead was a dumb bitch and little samoan girls made a game out of feeding her bullshit because she was too dense to think that learning a local language might pay off when studying a culture.

Most people by definition are average understanding that average is a relative concept. It in it's most basic form requires some ability to assess and measure an outcome and then compare to a standard. The standard being set by everyone else's performance. If everyone was exceptional then no one would really be exceptional as the standard to which everyone is compared would have been elevated.

Economics has been touched on briefly here as well. The world has a finite amount of wealth (or in it's most basic form resources) to divide amongst every living person. The only way for their to be "wealth" is for there to be poverty. For example, if the world only had 10 people and each person had $1 the only way for someone to be "wealthy" (i.e. have more than anyone else) is for that person to have $2 which of course means someone has $0. As time goes on we seem to be having the problem that 1 person has $9 out of the $10.

For Bill Gates to have billions, many other people in the economy must have very little. This is the fundamental problem of concentrating wealth. Eventually if allowed to play out uncorrected all the wealth concentrates to such a degree that there's isn't enough wealth for the majority of people to support the wealthy - if everyone is impoverished and no one has money to buy a Mercedes then Mercedes isn't going to sell cars and if they don't sell cars they make no money and if they don't make money they are no longer wealthy. Now of course this is theoretical and there are corrections but....

What goes hand in hand with this concept is mediocrity or being average. If everyone was exceptional then no one would be exceptional. If everyone was wildly successful than no one would be wildly successful. If everyone has a lot of money then no one would be "wealthy" (after all wealth is not how many dollars you have - it's how much those dollars are "worth" relative to everyone else's dollars). So this system needs average people flipping burgers in it. Furthermore, this system NEEDS A LOT of "mediocre people" (I'll say average) in it because menial jobs are the most common form of employment.

So my argument....there needs to be mediocrity in society and most people need to be average for our world to work the way it does. I make no comment about being a good or bad person or wanting more from life or wanting to improve your life. My argument can only be interpreted to pertain to the population as a whole and there are always individual exceptions.