The Sacred Averageness

Yesterday, I Took the First Step in Embracing the Averageness

There is something terrifying about being average—a word that feels like a death sentence in a world built on excellence, breakthroughs, and radiant individualism.

But yesterday, I chose it. Not out of resignation. Not in defeat. But as a conscious, trembling act of defiance.

I stood in front of the mirror, slipped a necklace over my head—a talisman I made with an uncut amethyst heart, dyed agates, and deliberately unremarkable beads—and whispered:

This is not an outstandingly gorgeous necklace. It’s averagely enough.

I am averagely enough.

That moment wasn’t about the necklace.

It was about giving myself permission to stop sprinting.

I have spent so much of my life afraid of mediocrity—as if it were a failure of potential, a betrayal of my own depth.

I’ve devoured self-help dogma, outgrown multiple versions of myself, and lit fires under every dream that dared to burn less brightly.

And still, I was haunted by the invisible chorus that hissed:

Do more. Be more. Shine harder.

But what if the answer isn’t in becoming more, but in settling into the steady pulse of what already is?

We overlook the power of the ordinary because we’ve been conditioned to believe it has no story. No climax. No reward.

And yet, what is a life, if not a collection of average days—cups of tea brewed without urgency, half-finished thoughts, long stretches of nothing-in-particular?

What if those moments are not empty space, but sacred ground?

I think about the friends who don’t chase the spotlight, but show up when I forget how to speak.

The plants on my balcony that grow without applause.

The way I love—not like fireworks, but like a quiet tide.

Why have we decided that this isn’t miraculous?

Yesterday, I didn’t conquer the world.

I didn’t launch anything.

I didn’t transform.

I made a necklace. I wrote a few sentences. I remembered to breathe. I hugged, I loved, I felt loved.

And I did it with a new taste—a kind of soft mediocrity I had forgotten how to feel.

A tenderness toward the self I am when I am not performing.

This is not a manifesto against ambition. I will still create. I will still rise.

And yes, some part of me still wants to rise away from myself.

But yesterday—I felt no shame in being average.

I found rhythm in the silence, weight in the pause, meaning in the mundane.

So here I am.

A little quieter. A little slower.

Just me, full of unremarkable averageness.

Wearing an amethyst heart that doesn’t try to shine—just to be.

Yesterday, I took the first step.

And I think I’m going to stay.