What It Really Means Being Average
In the book “Our Oriental Heritage” by Will Durrant wrote that a “A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean” the stoics put off the comforts of the day for a future reward, and the epicureans believed to live for the day.
America was founded on these stoic beliefs and in 1905 American became the richest country in the world. In fact America became the richest country that had ever existed on the face of this earth however, just like every nation, America too will die epicurean. Today there are 12 other nations that are richer than the United States.
Americans had a standard of excellence. However, instead of being the best we got comfortable with the idea of just being good enough. This lowering of standards have impacted almost every area of our lives including…
Economist Paul Krugman has said in his Master Class speech that when he was growing up nobody was overly concerned getting rich because everyone was going to win. Earl Nightengale in his book “The Strangest Secret” which was published in 1957 that the American economy has been designed for you not to fail.
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In fact to live the lifestyle of a middle class family 1960 you would have to earn between $180,000 to $1,000,000 a year as of the year 2015.
Because of this lowering of standards too many people have gotten soft and live for the day and not where those choices you make will lead you to tomorrow.
What it means to be average
Being average, at one time use to be something to be proud of. A term that many from my parents generation is familiar with is “An Honest Days Pay, For An Honest Days Work” however, many people started losing for shortcuts.
People started to look for work where they could get paid as much as they could for the lest amount of work. You may have heard companies owners say “It’s Hard To Find Good Help”. So many of them began to user cut there customers. Destroying the trust businesses had with their customers.
To be average no longer means what it once meant
America use to lead the word in it’s academic skills. However, The article from https://www.wyliecomm.com/2019/03/us-literacy-rate/ points out that the average American has a 3rd grade reading level.
According to an article from https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/just-how-fat-are-americans-a-stunning-new-government-study-just-revealed-truth.html which shows that in 1960 the average adult man weight 166 lbs. However, by 2016 the average man weighs 197.9 lbs.
Body Mass Index (BMI) rose from 27.8 to 29.1 for men since 2000, and from 28.2 to 29.6 for women. A normal or healthy BMI is supposed to be between 18.5 and 24.9.
Body fat leads to a number of life threading illnesses. If you are average you will probably die from heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, and unintentional injuries. Together they accounted for 63 percent of all U.S. deaths
( See article: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0501-preventable-deaths.html)
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a median personal income of $865 weekly for all full-time workers in 2017. The U.S Bureau of the Census has the annual median personal income at $31,099 in 2016. Real per–capita disposable income was $45,646 as of October, 2019. (See article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States )
The median household income hit $61,372 in 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s almost $20,000 more than it was in 2000. But the typical American household now carries an average debt of $137,063. The median debt was only $50,971 in 2000.
Again, to live the lifestyle of a middle class family you need to earn between $180,000 – $1,000,000 a year. The number #1 reason for divorce is neglect due to over working and money is the #1 reason for divorce.
The average age for a couple going through a first divorce is 30 years old and 60% of divorces involve spouses who are between the ages of 25 and 39. Women are more likely to file for divorce than men and the divorce rate is highest for African-American women aged 50 to 59.
https://www.thebalance.com/how-long-do-average-u-s-marriages-last-4590261
Divorce has more than doubled since 1960 as the following article from https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-evolution-of-divorce points out. We will not going into it in this article but children need both parents in their lives to grow up productive. Can they survive with one? Yes, but studies have proven to for a child to live up to their potential they need both parents during their formative years.
The average American use to spend 6 hours watching TV every night however, instead of TV people have switch it to watch movies, youtube video or playing games on their phone.
According to an article published at https://www.marketwatch.com/story/people-are-spending-most-of-their-waking-hours-staring-at-screens-2018-08-01 American adults spend more than 11 hours per day. That’s up from nine hours, 32 minutes just four years ago
So when you break this down, the average American is lazy, sick, fat, broke, and dumb!
Past of our mission is to help raise you up to be ranked in the top 10 percent of the highest performers in all areas of your life. As you saw in our module “Learning To Live” most people will only try to fix their problems once they are in enough pain. But most people will only work on themselves lessen the pain but once the pain has subsided enough they will go back to their normal everyday of life where they will spend most of their time trying to escape their problem rather than doing something about them.
I was not alive at the time but my parents told me in the 1960’s people did not complain about that someone else was doing better than they were. People complain about how someone else is richer than they are and that they are not rich. Today people complain about the privileges you have that they don’t have such as white privledge, their also those who claim if you are thin you are privileged as the following articles at https://everydayfeminism.com/2012/11/20-examples-of-thin-privilege/ points out.
Yes, there are situations that may be out of your control that makes things more difficult for example Because of lowering our standards of excellence if you are average you are more likely to die before the average of 75 of diabetes, cancer or other lifestyle illnesses however, this does not mean it is out of your control.
You perhaps have adapted to the modern culture and have wimped out refusing to take responsibility for your action. We are all born with certain gifts and disadvantages the key is to use your gifts to your advantage.
Your disadvantages may not be your fault but it is your responsibility to overcome them. To become truly successful you must become what we call in the module “Learning To Live” as a high performer.
These are people who already have a pretty good life, but they are always seeking ways to improve their life, because they know on average a person will experience a major tradgeity every 18 months.
So unlike most people instead of waiting for a problem to occur theses people try to solve their minor problems before they turn into big problems.
Many of these people are less educated, less connected, have less money, and came from more dysfunctional families than your but still managed to overcome every obstinate they came up against to become a high performer.
When someone tries to develop some area of their life most people fail. But when you stick with it long enough, your odds of success greatly increases as you saw in the article “The Odds Are Against You”. This is especially true when you combine it with the right knowledge.
For example we know that most marriages end in divorce however, The Gottman Institute has studied married couple for over 30 years which can pinpoint with 94% accuracy of whether a couple will stay married by the couples fighting style.
So it is not enough to say that majority of marriages end in divorce but what are the things that over time that lead to the divorce? The same is true when you talk about diets that failed, money issues, business failures.
When people fail at anything it is because of one of the 33 reason they failed. However, there are 17 principles that cause people to succeed.
So our goal is to develop you into a high performer.
