This is one reflection piece that has been on my mind for quite a while because life in Singapore always seem so stressful. Everyone is always stuck in the daily grind to achieve that elusive success.
Pursuit of Excellence in School
I started reflecting on this topic when my son was in primary school. Back then, I was adamant that he should at least try to get through his first few academic years without the added pressure of tuition (which is a typical trend in Singapore). It seems that he stuck out like a sore thumb amongst his friends as the one who did not attend any tuition classes. And I stood out amongst the parents as the one who did not send her son for tuition to secure his future academic success. Every parent seems to be unwilling to be satisfied with their children’s passing examination results and would truly be happy if their children are scoring perfect scores. This mad race for that excellent examination scores took the joy out of learning. Increasingly over the years, there are more reports of students succumbing to depression and stress. Amongst my network of friends and acquaintances, we hear of children finding it hard to cope with the pressure of the national examinations and more instances of bullying amongst the children in school.
Pursuit of Excellence at the Workplace
Then we turn the lenses on the workplace. The expectations and habit of scoring As in school continue to spill over. I remembered how one of my youngest team members was unable to accept a performance grade C (average) for meeting work expectations as it was the norm for her to score As and Bs in school. The agony of knowing that she did well at work instead of exceptionally well blew my mind at that point. It seems that not being one of the best is an unacceptable and not a normal thing. This pursuit of success and excellence is relentless and definitely has taken a toil on the country’s mental health.
Is the Middle a Bad Place?
If we were to look at the population as a whole, it is an undeniable truth that there is a small percentage of the population who are insanely wealthy or successful and a whole bunch of regular people who are in that huge band of middle-income earners. If all these middle-income earners were all expecting to be the one of the wealthiest in the world before they could be happy, they would just be a very unhappy bunch of people till the end of their lives. Statistically, it is unavoidable that many of us will be in the middle which is definitely not a bad place to be in. It is definitely better than being at the bottom.
Happiness at the Middle
This unhealthy perspective of being successful only when we are one of the best is probably one of the key reasons for the level of unhappiness experienced in the developed countries. The social media is not making it easier when we are constantly bombarded with words and visuals that create comparisons, and that illusion that what we have is not enough. Comparisons are illusions and these words are manipulating us, against our best interest, making us feel insecure and unsatisfied.
To end off, Oxford dictionary has defined “exceptional” as “unusual and not typical”. It is, therefore, not logical for us to continue the pursuit of exceptional in order to be considered successful. It is okay not to be the best. We also do not need to aspire to be the best but to aspire to be better is enough. We certainly do not need to be the best to be happy. It takes real courage to be ordinary. I would think we would all be in a happier space if being that regular Joe and embracing mediocrity is viewed as the norm.