Ordinary Average Guy

Every morning I wake up, scrub the gunk off my teeth with my Oral-B electric toothbrush, shower the sleep from my fogged mind, put on a nice button up shirt with work-casual pants, get in my mid-size, foreign, fuel efficient sedan and drive to work where I spend my day under soft fluorescent lights working away at a computer. I go to meetings. I have lunch with co-workers. I talk to people who lean casually against my cubicle wall and discuss what was on television the night before.

At the end of the day I return to my split-level at the back end of a cul-de-sac in a bedroom community of a respectable but largely harmless Midwestern town. I walk in the door and greet my wife and two kids, settle into my recliner and watch the local news — mostly for the weather — followed on most nights by Wheel of Fortune where I laugh at the folly of people not so remarkably unlike myself. I fix dinner two or three nights a week, demand that my boy eat his vegetables when he turns his nose up in disgust, complain about those bozos up on Capitol Hill and read Goodnight Moon to my son.

In the immortal words of Joe Walsh, I’m just an ordinary, av-uh-rage guy.

Am I a cliché, an anarchist’s nightmare of conformity, the poster boy for teenage paradise lost? If so, God help me if I’m not pretty much just fine with the whole damn thing.

My life may well be a cookie cutter replacement for 50 million guys pretty much just like me, but even in its achingly simplicity I find it strangely noble and proud. In an age where everyone seems to believe they are destined for greatness, and inevitably go around moping for the middle two decades of their short life when that dream pops like a pineapple-flavored chewing-gum bubble on a teenage girl’s lips, I feel oddly content with being somewhat ordinary.

I know that I am eyeing on-rushing middle-age like an asteroid falling from the sky, but rather than fearing the crushing blow that strikes with galactic force, I am standing in the street arms outstretched ready to be enveloped into the cleansing fire of predictability.

Navel, prepare thyself to be thoroughly gazed, but in just the handful of years since I first entertained the bizarre notion of asking people to give me money for playing and talking about games, most of the rest of my life has settled like the sand on a beach at low tide. Was it not just a couple of years ago that I ran my own highly unsuccessful small business, bucking convention and breaking the mold as an entrepreneur? Yes, and what kind of special torture the uncertainty and heavy burden of launching that small business on the eve of global economic disaster turned out to be.

As I sit here at work, confident of the timely and predictable wages I gratefully gather, I feel a bit like the Indiana Jones of the working world, having slid under the ominously closing stone door, snatching my fedora from the fetid floor the moment before the gateway to gainful employment snapped shut. As I sit and ponder the grand normalcy of it all right now, it feels less to me like a burden and more like a luxury.

Is it so wrong to work just to be content, to succeed, to support a family and be a cardboard cut-out of the Classic American Family™? I feel like I should be wanting more, like there is some sentiment of judgment from too many generations told that they were special, when the reality is that being a unique snowflake is great until you realize that from a distance it all just looks like snow. I realize this is sacrilege to those who hold the unique sacrosanct and that to many it may seem like I’m wandering comatose through a life that could have been much more just clocking time with one foot in the cultural grave, but you know “Comfortably Numb” was always my favorite Floyd song anyway so that probably means something.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I — I took the road less traveled by. These words are propped up as the slogan for individualism, but every time I read that poem it just sounds to me like taking the road less traveled by turned out to be a huge pain in the ass. You take the road that “was grassy and wanted wear”, I’m going to take this one here that’s paved and has a McDonalds on it.

When at the end of days I take stock of this life, I don’t need to have cured cancer or flown to the moon. It will be enough to know that I took care of my family. That I lived honest and true. That I had fun and played games and found joy in the simple quiet of a satisfied life.

Comments

Jonman wrote:

Exceptionalism is hard work

Too right. At 27 I've worked in three - probably soon to be four - countries and nearly finished a PhD in medical research at a top university (ANU is one below Stanford on the THES rankings), and frankly the life Elysium described sounds much more satisfying.

Best case scenario, my research may have an impact on treatment of autoimmune conditions in a decade or two, but getting to this stage has played merry hell with my health, hobbies, and personal life. My main ambition at this point is to become a lot more average after I get this thrice-cursed thesis done.

This could just be the grass-is-greener effect, of course.

I'm there, although my soft flourescent light is augmented by light from a real window!

Your comments about being a unique snowflake remind me of some conclusions that Monty Python reached about individuality.

Everyone is unique, but being different is overrated. Way overrated. Most of the time, really being different only means that you have no one to talk to. Why the heck would anyone want that?

Doing brain surgery and heart surgery is overrated. I have friends who are neurosurgeons and cardiac surgeons. They have long irregular hours and that tends to do a major number on their lives outside of work. One of my friends who isn't a brain surgeon isn't one because she saw what being one was all about and she wanted none of it.

It's grueling, long, and tiring work.

I see people and talk to people on both sides of the "different" and "unique" divide. Being different isn't all good. No small number of people deliberately choose not to pursue challenging careers. It's easy to fault them for "giving up the opportunity" until you really see what it's all about.

Condemning someone to 18 hour days every day for years plus lack of essential human contact is quite simply inhumane. They either choose that willingly or they push it away. I don't have the heart to condemn people who turn away from it.

"Everyone is unique, but being different is overrated. Way overrated. Most of the time, really being different only means that you have no one to talk to. Why the heck would anyone want that?"

I hate people.

As someone who is largely satisfied with his job and life, I say bravo.

For my part, I'm looking forward to middle age (which isn't so distant as it once was.) Finally, my body will age to the point where my attitude won't seem odd.

In my head, I've been a cranky 50 year old almost since I was born.

Switchbreak wrote:

It's alright, Elysium, us extraordinary people need guys like you around in order to stand out.

Everyone's a hero, in their own way.
Everyone has villains they can face
They're not as cool as mine,
but folks you know it's fine
to know your place.

Enix wrote:

I just never predicted that I'd be so [...] predictable.

Well, at least you're a paradox. And thus a walking danger to the space-time continuum! How rock and roll is THAT!

Your article hit home Elysium, as I'm quickly accepting how completely and utterly boring I'm becoming (and always have been).

It's the last six weeks of my tenure as 'president' of our local youth house, and frankly I'm sick of it. I just want to focus on the house my girl and I are building, play videogames when I can and occasionally go to the pub or to a restaurant with close friends. No matter how much I love the guys at the youth house, I've had it with the superficial boyish cameraderie, the boozing and 'having to' go out every weekend to not be a square.

Here's to us squares!

I'm not even going to dignify myself with the title of "filthy skimmer." Cause I didn't even skim, I just skipped to the end while the thought of my reply was fresh in my head. So, sorry if someone has said this already.

Good article.

And I disagree on one point. About your life being average, that is. You haven't cured cancer, no, but you started a pretty successful website and do entertaining pod-casts and write good articles that spur good discussions. While not unique, I'd guess that a very very small percentage of those "50 million guys pretty much like you" can say the same. This site and the community and content it's spawned is a pretty great achievement. Definitely not average.

I do agree with you that it is OK to "to work just to be content, to succeed, to support a family." I agree cause that's what I do with my life too. I don't have any driving desire to strike it rich or cure cancer. I mean, I wouldn't complain if I were to somehow come into a large sum of money or stumble upon the cure for cancer, but it's not a force that keeps me going. I just want to work a job that lets me live my life the way I want to live it. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm rambling. But I just thought I needed to write something and say you did something good here with GWJ.

mwdowns wrote:

And I disagree on one point. About your life being average, that is. You haven't cured cancer, no, but you started a pretty successful website and do entertaining pod-casts and write good articles that spur good discussions. While not unique, I'd guess that a very very small percentage of those "50 million guys pretty much like you" can say the same. This site and the community and content it's spawned is a pretty great achievement. Definitely not average.

I think Elysium is the ultimate manipulator. I think he already knows he has achieved some meaningful things that give his life identity: "he is that snarky guy from that site with those elitist pricks, you know?"

And now he's basking in a pile of comments saying "aww don't be like that, you are a snowflake!"

Touché Mr. Elysium, touché.

:p

I'm more inclined to agree with Mr. Sands here. He is absolutely and completely average.

Weird; I was thinking about this last night. I was watching an episode of Dragon's Den where they went through how each of the Dragons ended up fabulously wealthy, and it got me thinking. I don't have great aspirations - never have. I don't have tremendous ambition - never have. I was cursed with 'potential' my entire childhood, and have done virtually nothing with it.

But:
I have a steady job that I like and that pays the bills.
I have a house that I love and a car that I love.
I have a beautiful wife and two great kids.
If we need -- or want -- something, we're in a position to just buy it.
I've got good friends that live close by.
I get along well with my extended family.
My biggest gripe is that I don't get enough sleep, or enough time to play video games.

To me, that sounds pretty good. I'm happy being happy.

Speaking as someone who has for most of his life followed the path of most resistance, there is something undeniably appealing about the 'quiet life'. I guess I never grew out of being the kid who, when someone asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, replied "everything."

I've felt the beating of flames and heat against my bunker gear as a firefighter, and pulled apart cars with my rescue tools. As an EMT I've endured the hopeless eyes of a family watching me try to revive their family member they know in their hearts to already be dead. I've blasted down the road at 130mph in my patrol car, and seen a gangbanger crumple into a sobbing heap as he realises that the girlfriend he was rushing out of the screendoor to beat has been replaced by a cop staring at him down the barrel of a pistol.

I've shot-the-breeze with generals, chatted with the Secretary of the Air Force about what I'd like to see changed in the USAF, and had 170+ officers snap to attention on my command. I've listened to the snap of the flag in the breeze as a Senior Chief sang a prayer in Japanese to keep us safe. I've looped and rolled aircraft in the azure sky, knowing the perfect freedom only a pilot can know. I've looked down and seen wires tangled in my hand where they've burst from the console, with the cold weight in my stomach of not knowing whether I'll be able to continue to control my aircraft at low-speed if my trim-controls haven't failed to neutral.

Now, I'm studying medicine. Already, I've felt the beat of a man's carotid against the fingertips I had deep inside his neck. I've heard confessions from people who have known me for five minutes that they haven't told their families for a lifetime. There's new respect from some, and new contempt from others. And this road is certainly the path of most resistance. And you know what?

I'm tired.

I'm 33, and I'm exhausted. It's currently 8:30am and, once I finish this post, there are about fourteen hours of study ahead of me. I'm not married, and I don't have any kids. I'm busting my arse to deliberately get into a profession in which there's widespread outrage at the rule that I can only be made to work 80 hours per week, every week. In which a 20-minute patient consultation earns me the contempt of a patient for rushing them, and the anger of the bean-counters for being too slow. A field in which the grueling years of training are held equal in people's minds to any random moron shouting that their tiger's-penis remedy has been used for thousands of years to treat cancer in a country that mysteriously had a life-expectancy half of what it became with the arrival of modern medicine.

So yeah, some days the quiet life sounds good. The 9-5 cubicle, the spouse, kids, and dog, the warm home with the game console hooked up to the TV. It'd be nice to be able to schedule multiplayer games, to speak of being 'at the 20-hour mark' in a game, or to have someone to come home to when it's been a crappy day.

The grass is always greener, as they say, and I don't for a second believe that I wouldn't go mad with boredom if I actually did settle down. But the quiet life? Some days that sure does seem like a noble path indeed.

That's a heck of a story Coldstream, and worthy of tons of respect. It also explains the hot girlfriend ;-).
Thanks for doin what you're doin.

I've been thinking about this since reading it, and I think I've found my happy place.

In the grand scheme of things, I rate myself "mildly above average", and that's perfectly enough for me. Ahead of the curve, but not at the front. A solid 7.5 out of 10. I am the Dante's Inferno to Coldstream's God of War. Competant, but not likely to set the world on fire.

And that works just fine.

Actually, I should apologise. Sorry for the rant. Guess I got out of bed in an odd mood this morning.

hbi2k wrote:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I — I took the road less traveled by. These words are propped up as the slogan for individualism, but every time I read that poem it just sounds to me like taking the road less traveled by turned out to be a huge pain in the ass. You take the road that “was grassy and wanted wear”, I’m going to take this one here that’s paved and has a McDonalds on it.

Funny that you should reference that particular Robert Frost poem, considering that it is constantly and widely misinterpreted. Let's take a look at the whole thing, shall we?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

(Boldface mine.)

The point of the poem is not that the speaker actually took the path less traveled. The point is that both paths were EQUALLY traveled, but when he looks back on this years later, he will TELL people that he took the one less traveled. It's not a poem about individualism per se, but one poking gentle fun at people's need to seem individualistic.

So perhaps it supports the point of this article better than you even knew. (-:

Hey, everybody, look! I used my English major for something in real life!

I want to be your friend - that was fantastic. You made my day.

hbi2k wrote:

Funny that you should reference that particular Robert Frost poem, considering that it is constantly and widely misinterpreted. Let's take a look at the whole thing, shall we?

Well done as always Sean. Frankly, at this stage for me, your situation sounds positively euphoric. If I could just get some semblance of stability right now, I'd be dancing a jig. One of these days I swear...

Coldstream wrote:

Actually, I should apologise. Sorry for the rant. Guess I got out of bed in an odd mood this morning.

Well, you're hardly the only one that's done it in this thread.

Coldstream wrote:

Actually, I should apologise. Sorry for the rant. Guess I got out of bed in an odd mood this morning.

Don't apologise Coldstream.

Apart from being a well written and engaging comment, it provides an interesting counter-point to Sean's article.

As a guy in his late 20s, married (but no kids), working as a public servant, I can definitely appreciate the different points of view being put forward, for and against being 'different'.

Yet again, GWJ has provided an interesting and thought provoking discussion that I doubt I would be able to find anywhere else on the internet. Thanks to all.

Amen.

That 'drive' that you talk about is what causes discontent. And I think discontent is the root of all misery. If you learn to be content you attain happiness.

I love my 'ordinary' life!

I have a fun job (IT Administrator, playing with computers all day ) working for a cool company (environmental engineering firm) I make good money/benefits, really awesome co-workers and a great boss. I own a beautiful home that fits me perfect! I have a 2001 Prius Hybrid that's still running great *knock on wood*:p

I have a really handsome, loving boyfriend that LOVES me lots and is the shinning light of my life. I would be meaningless without him.

I live in the wonderful city of Portland Oregon which is full of liberalism, art, culture and creative alternative colorful people and lifestyles. It's in the Great Northwest so every means of nature (mountains, rivers, deserts, ocean, lakes, forests, country, gorges) is only a hop and a skip in any direction of the city.

I have good friends and my family here. Me and my bf are both young and healthy and no kids to bog us down yet.

I don't neeed anything else. I feel quite "extra-ordinary"!

dejanzie wrote:

No matter how much I love the guys at the youth house, I've had it with the superficial boyish cameraderie, the boozing and 'having to' go out every weekend to not be a square.

Frankly all that youth house mentality is just childishness and immaturity. It is definitely nice to grow out of that

Elysium wrote:
How come every front page article you post I read in "Elysium-voice". Doesn't happen with the other front pagers...

Honest to God, this is one of the best compliments I've ever gotten. I think every writer absolutely lusts after the idea of having a "voice" that resonates as unique with anyone.

I get this with you and rabbit. Everyone else gets my own voice.

Certis wrote:

I read your articles in the voice of snaggle puss.

Wait, never mind. Certis now sounds like Snaggle Puss.

As to the article, well, two things came to mind, both of them country songs.

First thought in my head wrote:

It puts the gas in my truck, butter on my biscuit,
couple bucks when I’m itching for a scratch-off ticket
That poker makes me broker every Saturday night
But I still got running water and they ain’t cut off the lights
Come Friday night, My friends and I start peeling off them labels
Working hard all week puts beer on the table

Granted, for me, beer on the table is really video games to play, and it's my kindle making me broke, but I think the point stands. I think everyone's been at that point where they want greatness in their life. There's nothing wrong with that, and I'd go so far as to say it's somewhat necessary for a person to really find out what they're looking for in life. The whole bit about not knowing sweet without tasting bitter and all that.

Oh, and kids definitely seals the deal. And I can speak from experience and say that they don't even have to be yours biologically; I came to terms with my slice of life after marrying a mother of two. But having your own definitely seals the deal

Abigail wrote:

I live in the wonderful city of Portland Oregon which is full of liberalism, art, culture and creative alternative colorful people and lifestyles. It's in the Great Northwest so every means of nature (mountains, rivers, deserts, ocean, lakes, forests, country, gorges) is only a hop and a skip in any direction of the city.

Heh, I think that disqualifies you from being "a cardboard cut-out of the Classic American Family™" or "an anarchist’s nightmare of conformity."

That seems to be the running theme in these comments: people aren't giving themselves enough credit for being 'unique'.

Elysium wrote:

You take the road that “was grassy and wanted wear”, I’m going to take this one here that’s paved and has a McDonalds on it.

To join the chorus of assent, I'm in the same general phase of life, except I'm hitting my head against a proverbial wall about it. I'm 18 days from 40 and, to my deep and utter shock, actually care; 30 meant nothing to me, but 40 is actually wearing on me a bit. I do have the generic life in many ways--married ten years, two kids, nice suburban house . . . well, OK, it's a bit of a McMansion, really. I'll be at my job 10 years in 19 days (starting it one day after I turned 30 makes the anniversary easy to remember), and for half of my time at this job, I've worked full-time from home. Many days, I don't even leave the house other than running the girl to school in the morning. This fall, when she hits public school, she'll join her brother at the bus stop immediately outside my house, and I won't even need to leave at all. I'm paid quite well for my job and my intelligent and capable wife is paid even better. I have no financial stress, a ridiculous amount of job security for a job I'm very respected at, and really nothing pushing me at all.

And it drives me nuts these days. I feel like I need something to angst over. I'm bored. Really bored. Part of the problem is I utterly refuse to "grow up" in many ways. I still have the long hair. I like video games. I like sci-fi. I don't buy comics anymore, but I'll occasionally read Wikipedia for updates on the titles I used to read. I'm a beer geek, and had a tasting at my house the other night with a series of thirtysomething guys I know where the evening descended into the expected round of utterly crude "your mom" jokes. I, in fact, have almost nothing whatsoever in common with anybody I live near; they want to talk about golf and their investments, and I want to talk about how impressive the storytelling is in Mass Effect 2 and how great a round of Left 4 Dead 2 I had the other night with some strangers on Xbox Live.

I do think I'm just hitting a mid-life crisis, albeit a relatively tame one. I don't want a trophy wife; my wife, for all the ways she drives me nuts (and there are loads) is hot, really intelligent, successful, and capable in loads of ways. I don't want a sports car, I love the minivan (best car I've ever owned by far). My son is smart and funny. My daughter is, as I've often referred to her, an avatar of joy, and she brings happiness wherever she goes. I'm living the American Dream in more ways than I can count, but the fact that I haven't done writing in years and I just can't seem to buckle down and finish a few songs or practice my fingerpicking enough . . . well, it annoys me.

A year ago, I was fine. A year from now, I suspect I'll be fine. Today, I'm staring at 40, and, for whatever reason, it bothers me.

Clearly, the only solution for my angst is to play Mass Effect 2 for several hours tonight.

Fantastic article - I'm giving you a standing ovation. Well written and just, well, awesome.

Like Certis said, you are kind of a big deal on the internet, and have people all over the world that listen and respect your opinion.

awesomo316 wrote:

Like Certis said, you are kind of a big deal on the internet, and have people all over the world that listen and respect your opinion.

Aw man, the last time someone told him that, he sprinkled himself with glitter, put on a crown and an ermine cape, and went around waving a Disney-Princess wand proclaiming himself 'Faerie King of the Internets'. Do you have any idea how long it took us to persuade him to not have podcasts in which the rest of the crew had to hum the Sugarplum Fairy theme in the background every time he spoke?

Thanks a lot!

Nice article, Elysium. I think "ordinary" is a matter of perspective.

I believe we all could be heroes to the people in our lives. We usually never know it, because we're used to seeing things our way. But viewing yourself through the eyes of your little brother (who you listen to, when no one at school will), or the friend you remember to call on her birthday (when no one else did), or the child you can't wait to see after getting home from work (despite the exhaustion), and you may see yourself in a way you never thought possible. We become extraordinary, if only for a moment.

On the one hand, Elysium's description of the office lifestyle and how he fits into it sounds accurate. On the other, the community here (for the most part) points out that he improved the quality of the internet by his very presence. Despite our belief that we are always the same person, the people around us have very different ideas of who we are. Where we think we fit into it is only part of the equation.

MilkmanDanimal, I thought of your comment as I was typing this. My dad went through the same thing a few years ago (his was 50). He joked that his mid-life crisis was to grow a beard. Whatever. He's still my hero.

Coldstream wrote:
awesomo316 wrote:

Like Certis said, you are kind of a big deal on the internet, and have people all over the world that listen and respect your opinion.

Aw man, the last time someone told him that, he sprinkled himself with glitter, put on a crown and an ermine cape, and went around waving a Disney-Princess wand proclaiming himself 'Faerie King of the Internets'. Do you have any idea how long it took us to persuade him to not have podcasts in which the rest of the crew had to hum the Sugarplum Fairy theme in the background every time he spoke?

I own a fairy shop and my sales are down - this is all I could do to feed myself

Dude~

Great article and so very true on many levels. i like to think that i am living a similiar life. although I got to get my "mid life crisis" car Monday (You will be eligible soon enough), but other than that I am totally with you. I just think that somehow the wheel of fortune time could be better spent playing wheel of fortune on xbox live... Unless that is what you meant