Gravitating towards the Mean

You know, I remember college and grading on the curve. Not sure I understood it completely, but the gist is that in any given population, most people tend towards the mean (C average), and there are a few outliers on both tails (As and Fs). Now I think in college the curve was a bit forced – I think there were more Bs than Cs.

You know, in life, people tend towards the mean. After school, most people work for a living. My goal was to be a trophy wife, but sadly, I did not achieve that endeavor. I mean, I could give great head (a prerequisite), but alas, I did not find the billionaire husband. Drats.

Being a trophy wife, if you are looking at income or comfort level, would have placed me squarely in the right-side tail of the bell curve.¹

But I was thinking about it the other day – thinking about not wanting to be "normal" because normal sort of sucks.

Normal sort of sucks economically.
Normal people have about $8,000 in credit card debt, owe pretty much the entire mortgage on their homes, live paycheck to paycheck, owe several thousands of dollars on their cars, and have student loans that are, well, huge. Being smack-dab in the middle of normal does not look like a lot of fun. And I am not talking about wealth-building or having crap. I am more worried about not worrying constantly about money. That sucks, and life is too short to have it suck.

Normal sort of sucks socially.
Normal people watch 8 hours of television per day.² Normal people rarely hike, bike or swim. Normal people watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve, rather than being somewhere crowded and dancing one's ass off. Or spending the evening just reading a good book – doing something that most people aren't doing. Normal people read two books per year. Normal people (52% of the population) get divorced. Normal people who remain married don't seem to be able to sustain a very healthy marriage (myself included).

Normal sort of sucks physically.
Normal people gain 1 to 2 pounds of weight per year (over ten years, yikes, that is a lot of weight). Normal people can't run a mile once they hit the big 3-0, and although they may have a gym membership, they do not actively attend. Normal people can't climb stairs without feeling winded, can't touch their toes or don't like their figure.

You know, I don't want to be normal. I want to live an extraordinary life. I want to be more than normal. Normal people don't write books, and I desperately want to be abnormal. I want to write a book. And you know, more and more, I think the difference between being normal and being extraordinary is in setting goals. Simple, really, and that is the difference between being in the middle of the curve and being on the far right side of the curve. And it took me thirty some-odd years to figure this out. Holy crap, and I normal.

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¹Giving good tail to be on the right-side tail. Actually, I have heard trophy wives have to be presentable, look down their noses at others and eat salads at every meal. Clearly, that is not what I would have liked, even if it meant country clubs, high teas and theatre every Saturday evening.

²Okay, all of these numbers are made up. Not that they are completely made up. I heard something in the past, but I am too lazy to actually look them up, though Google would probably help me out.