In the big pool of fish that is the Colorado School of Mines, I'm probably a guppy or a goldfish. Or a flounder, because I always feel like I'm flounder-ing. (Ha. Get it?)

In all actuality: I have the distinct honor of having the company of some of the most hardworking, talented, intelligent people on earth. My friends are the ones who are late to competitive swing dance practice because they've been programming for six hours straight, who are both fascinated by thorium reactors and pick up songs on the guitar instantaneously, and who watch Broad City and read manga for hours on end yet still pass classes with flying colors. Oh, I know all of these people work their arses off. Yet, I still can't help but feel that here I am, just me, celebrating my 76 percent while my friends mourn three lost points on our exams. Here I am, just me; let me wave my certificate for exceptional attendance in the air while my friends collect internships like they're pop tabs in a soda factory. Here I am, just me, and as much as I love my friends and revel in their awesomeness, it's pretty easy to start feeling mediocre. The gross kind of mediocre, like soggy paper plates mediocre or god forbid, dorm food mediocre.

It must have been right after exam scores were released that I went on an uncontrollably long rant to a friend about how "I work just as hard as everyone else, why can't I get this right?!" and, "Look at how amazing everyone else is, and then there's untalented, slightly boring, very average me," and, "I bet I'll end up with a cubicle job where I'll waste my life away behind three whitewashed walls," all accented with hair-pulling groans and terrific growls.

Imagine my disbelief when he told me he felt exactly the same. How could someone who got a 97 percent on his first physics test feel mediocre?

Turns out, everyone feels mediocre at some point in time.

Here's the crazy thing: mediocrity is a little bit like floodwater. Sometimes it comes in giant, overwhelming waves with debris and branches that stick you in the gut and let those salty, internal geysers out of your eyeballs. Sometimes it creeps up centimeter by centimeter, just enough to soak your socks so you're thoroughly uncomfortable for the rest of the day. Either way, if you don't move, it'll swallow you whole.

I think the feeling of mediocrity is a reflection of mental stagnancy. It's easy to fall into that mindset of monotonous comparison, that confirmation bias of all the negatives— where one feels a little bit bad and then identifies all the reasons to feel even worse. But as cheesy as it sounds, every single human being— you, me, yes: every single human being— has gifts that no one else has. It's these gifts that completely eradicate the possibility of permanent mediocrity. And it's these gifts that we need to learn to embrace.

Maybe it's the dedication to your morning runs, or your skill in making the perfect cup of tea in exactly three minutes. Maybe it's your knowledge of all 720 Pokémon, or your bright smiles saved for family and friends and strangers alike, or your ability to take fifteen minute to four hour naps several times a day. Maybe it's how you make people feel happy, or excited, or loved. It's about time we celebrated the good in ourselves.

So here I am, just me. Still me, still not done with mediocrity. But, perhaps it's time to start painting the roses red.