Hi, my name is Anita Louie, but that doesn’t really matter, because in the end you’ll forget me since I am painfully average.

College opened my eyes to a lot of things-- mostly cliched things, but things I never truly realized until now nonetheless. Kind of like how mothers always say, “You’ll understand when you’re older.” Now, I think I’m finally old enough to understand some universal truths.

The biggest one is this: no matter how good I am at something, there is always, always someone who is better. This sounds pretty obvious, until you really feel it (aka second semester of freshman year, when the honeymoon period just completely drops off). For example, in high school, I was the “English” kid. I was in the Literary Magazine and whenever I had to answer for the dreaded introductory “fun fact,” I invariably gave the trite answer of “I love to write!” People knew me for writing, and it was how I had always defined myself.

Now I’m in college, and suddenly, I’m surrounded by hundreds of other people who love to write, many who love it more and are far better at it than me. Of course, that didn’t necessarily turn me away from writing-- I still write, albeit a bit more self-consciously. But that doesn't change the fact that I know now that I'm mediocre at the thing that I loved most about myself.

This isn’t a pick-me-up article. It’s not about how to become above average. Because by the virtue of the word, most people are average. And sure, there’s the belief that everyone’s good at different things, which isn’t untrue, but at the same time doesn’t actually get rid of the feeling of mediocrity.

This isn’t about accepting mediocrity, either. If you want to be amazing at something, go for it. Try your best. Even if you have to try harder and longer than everyone else, try anyway. And at the end of it all, if you’re still just average, realize that that’s perfectly fine and normal.

Too many people strive to be “above average” just for the sake of it. If you want to be above average because you really care about something, then it shouldn’t matter whether you’re above average, which is such a subjective and ambiguous term anyway. You’ll still love what you’re doing.

I used to play piano. So did my sister. I sucked a lot-- my fingers were slow and clumsy, and I never had fun practicing in the beginning. On the other hand, my sister seemed like a natural. She even enjoyed practicing. If we practiced the same amount of time, she would end up sounding better.

Compared to other people my age who were also playing piano, I was definitely average, if not actually below average. But several years later, I picked it up again, and I still play now. Do I suck? Yes, for sure. I sit in the piano rooms of Mattin sometimes, stumbling through simple music while the people around me whiz through ridiculously complex pieces.

But a lot of people who used to be better than me dropped it completely in favor of other interests. I stayed with it not because I was good at it, but because I loved it. And I got over the fact that even though I wasn’t the best at it, I could still love it. I could accept my own level of talent at it.

So if you feel painfully average, that’s okay. “Average” is a comparative term-- it compares you to other people. If you love something enough to do it for you, you shouldn’t care about it in respect to other people.