[ioda]

"Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid."- Einstein

"Mediocrity" arises only when compared.

And comparison is plain stupid. My genes are different. The life circumstance through which I have gone through are different. My responses to various stimuli are different. My pleasure points are different. My pain points are different. My memory is different. The things that I consider important in my life are different.Every single thing about me is different from that of anybody else in this world. And yet, if I want to compare myself to some other person on a specific domain, I should be plain stupid.

Instead I would happily compare myself with myself. Am I giving my personal best? Am I getting paid in 'currencies that are important to me'?

Life is not single subject course. It is a multi disciplinary course. One may have ideas about becoming the greatest entrepreneur, the greatest artist or the greatest politician. But not many people talk about being a great child, being a great brother, being a great husband, being a great friend, being a great father or being a great grand father.

You may think that you got an "A' in a particular subject. But you may be a complete failure in other. If you are OK with it, no issues. But make sure that you scored 'A' in subjects that you thought important, and not someone else thought important.

I would love to believe that there is no such thing as 'Mediocrity'. The greatest tragedy is to not have lived the life that you wanted to live.

[Luc]

Not Einstein. It's never Einstein. The greatest tragedy in life is to misquote Einstein.

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/

[dTal]

  "The greatest tragedy in life is to misquote Einstein."
  	--Albert Einstein

[dredmorbius]

That was an incredibly insightful QI.

Helps even more if you've some idea what was going on in education, economics, and industry through this period as well.

[ioda]

On Education let me quote a popular writer from my place , Kamala Surayya (Madhavikutty) -

"I feel formal education here makes mediocrity's out of everybody. I don't think any genius can survive caught in the machine of formal education. It works like a bulldozer with which everybody is brought to a low level. They won't tolerate brilliance, they won't tolerate independent thinking. I don't believe that one can be a pundit, great scholar, by digesting what other scholars have written. I think we must find our own conclusions from our experiences."

On Economics and Industry - It is interesting to look at the fundamental truths on how value get generated and distributed. But it calls for a different write up all together

[icc97]

That quote investigation is definitely not mediocre. That puts snopes to shame. Now of course snopes feels mediocre. Sorry snopes, I didn't mean it.

[ObeyTheGuts]

We all want power. We all want exact same thing, even if we different species. Mediocricity comes from lieing that u dont want power and you are ok be weak unable and powerless.

[ioda]

"We all want exact same thing" - May be, but not every one want that 'same thing' to the same degree. Any commendable achievement in one field is often at the expense of something else.

May be I want to become rich, may be I want to become powerful. But I may also want to watch GOT once again, I may also want to do nothing, I may want to travel the world, I may want to see my children grow, I may also want to be alongside my parents when they need me in their loneliest days.

True, all of us want the exact thing. But the real question is what are the things that are most important. You may have to pick some and ignore some. It is here the difference arise.

And I strongly believe it is foolish to compare my path with that of the other, when their priorities, instincts, skills, context etc are different from that of me.

If there is no comparison, there is no mediocrity.

True I can compare my wealth with that of the other. I can compare my 'power' with that of the other. But how can I compare my happiness with that of the other. How can i compare my content with that of the other. How can I compare my creative satisfaction with that of the other.

When I can compare each and every one of those things against those people around, I may be ready to do that comparison and accept mediocrity.

[ObeyTheGuts]

Dude u use modern medicine, modern computers and other POWER stuff. You are willing sell ur effort for it, U WANT POWER not money, money is opposite of power its to depend on people, u want to fly to cure people and neber die and have food and all always with ease....

[mwfunk]

Power is only meaningful to the degree that it gives you independence. Power means nothing except as an escape from powerlessness. It's like money: money can't buy you happiness, but poverty can buy you sadness. Power can't make you happy, but being powerless and forced to do spend your life doing things you don't want to do can make you sad.

Mediocrity comes from seeing money and power as ends in themselves, rather than as mere escapes from poverty and powerlessness. Happiness and independence enable personal growth and achievement. Those are the only things that matter, not somebody's ability to make someone else do something that they don't want to do. If all you care about is acquiring the ability to make other people spend their time doing things they don't want to do, then I don't know what to tell you. I'm sorry if you don't think you are capable of creating great things on your own if given the opportunity, but you almost certainly are.

[dredmorbius]

Power is to a large extent independence. Not quite identical, but they're strongly related.

(Keep in mind that not all power is coercive power.)

[ioda]

I have no problem in wishing to be rich. I have no problem is wishing to be powerful. I have a problem only when I want to be richer than someone else. Why on earth do I want to define my 'need' looking at someone else.

And if I do not base my needs with that of some one else, why should I even compare myself with others, so as to determine if I am mediocre or not.

May be I am dumb. But I am happy to be dumb. Forrest Gump is my personal hero. LOL!

Teacher -"Do you ever dream, Forrest, about who you're gonna be?" Gump - "Who I'm gonna be?............. Yeah..................Aren't I going to be me? "