The Fear of Being Average

John Green's An Abundance of Katherines

Robert Tell by Carlos Tardez

An Abundance of Katherines contains many of the same tropes as John Green's other YA novels: a teenage guy likes an unattainable girl; he and his best friend(s) go on a road trip with an obscure and probably made-up destination; and the whole thing is chock full of absurd character details that are somehow believable simply because they fit within the reality that Green crafts. What makes An Abundance of Katherines unique is the Southern accents, the tampon string factory, and, above all, Green's portrayal of the fading "gifted kid." 

"All of a sudden, he wasn't anyone's boyfriend or anyone's genius."

Regression to the mean is a psychological term that refers to the tendency of extreme data to regress back to average as it continues to be measured. In the universe of An Abundance of Katherines, regression to the mean is Colin's worst fear. Colin is an extreme example of a common struggle: Kids labeled "gifted and talented" in the third grade usually make their way to average by the time they hit high school. One of the things Green does best with this novel is exemplify the terror and identity crisis that comes alongside averaging out. 

"I'm not a genius."

Colin is a prodigy, not a genius. He makes a specific distinction between the two, saying that a prodigy is someone who can absorb and learn mass amounts of information at a young age. A genius, on the other hand, is someone who discovers new information, rather than just consuming the work of others. Colin's parents have set a very high standard for him from a young age, perhaps promoting his prodigy. He is indeed very intelligent and knows lots of things. However, he is not a genius. While this may seem unproblematic, it actually presents quite an issue for Colin. He has always been told that he's smart, so much so that he has formed his entire identity around the idea that he is a fountain of intelligence. Without his mind, he is nothing. One can only be a prodigy for so long, which is why as he grows older and slowly starts to regress to the mean and become only slightly above average, he begins to grapple with his identity. 

Colin feels that he needs to become a genius because that is the next step to the identity that he has imagined for himself. Smart kids are supposed to get smarter. They're supposed to go from prodigies to geniuses. Instead, smart kids get smart, and then everyone else catches up. Colin has built his identity entirely in his prodigy and his streak of dating Katherines, and the moment that these two sources of identity crumble, Colin has no idea who he is. 

"Prodigy was what Colin had, the way language has words."

This is something we see in our society all the time. Kids are labeled as gifted and talented when they're young. They're praised for being smart, intelligent, and mature. Their parents add to this praise, thereby adding to the pressure for the child to maintain this identity of smartness because it is something that the child can take pride in. The child's entire sense of self becomes based on his or her intelligence, but as time passes, the rest of the children catch up. Suddenly the gifted and talented are only average. The moment we regress to a degree of normalcy, we panic. Who are we if not smart? Who will love us if we are not smart?

"He missed his imagined future."

This applies to more than just intelligence. Our society as a whole is plagued by the fear of being average. We want to be the best at everything. We want to be the smartest in the room. The prettiest in the room. The kindest in the room. The tallest in the room. The best dressed in the room. The list goes on and on. We are so caught up in an endless cycle of comparison and the overwhelming push to good, better, and best. 

In most cases, these pushes are made with good intentions. We want to get into good colleges, so we study, take hard classes, and sacrifice things for our GPA. We want to be pretty, so we watch countless YouTube videos, learn to straighten our hair, and buy cute necklaces. In moderation, striving to be better than you were in the past is a good thing. It's when we get so wrapped up in our successes that we build our identities from them that we reach an issue because -- just like Colin, -- the moment that any of these temporary foundations crumbles, our identity goes with it. 

We fear being just average because suddenly we are no longer the best. When there are people who are prettier than us, smarter than us, better than us, it makes us question where we lay on that scale in the first place. It makes us question whether any of our so-called successes ever mattered and whether we, in turn, matter now.

"I just want to do something that matters. Or be something that matters. I just want to matter."

To summarize thus far: Colin is a reflection of a common societal issue. We base our identities on things we believe we are great at. When others become good at those things, or we go from great to good, the identities we have built are threatened. This makes us terrified of being anything less than great, terrified of failure, terrified of being average, of being just normal. We want to be special. We want to be admired, loved, and valued. We want to matter. 

"I will get forgotten, but the stories will last. And so we all matter -- maybe less than a lot, but always more than none."

Colin feels this discomfort with and fear of normality throughout much of the book. He is afraid of the reality that he might be average. It is not until he accepts that being average is okay that he can learn who he really is. This also allows him to let go of the anxiety that stems from the pressure we put on ourselves to be perfect and great and best. When Colin accepts that he can't control the future, when he realizes that he is more than a fact book even if he is less than a genius, he suddenly feels at peace. He doesn't just throw himself and his passions away, but he does allow himself to release some of the pressure and standards he and his parents have set, in a way that allows him to step away from his identity as "smart" and into his identity as "Colin." He learns how to tell stories. He makes friends. He discovers his sense of humor. 

When we step away from the necessity to be the best, and allow ourselves to be average, normal, and, most of all, ourselves, we get to learn who we really are. We get to take a step back and breathe, and along the way we discover the personality we have and the other, smaller, more average talents and gifts that hide behind our big, great talent. Allowing ourselves to find identity in more than one facet of our personalities, allowing ourselves to be good at a lot of things instead of great at one, and allowing ourselves to stop pushing for perfection, are all good and wonderful things when done properly. 

"How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world?"

If it's that simple -- if all we and Colin need to do is accept that we can't control the future and it's okay not to be perfect -- then why do we struggle so much to do it? Why can't we just let go? We have spent so long ingraining into our brains this idea that perfection and above-average are normal, attainable, and sustainable that we have actually begun to equate normality and averageness to something bad. Because reaching for average is less than what we reached for before, we see it as lazy, lower than, unimportant. In some cases, this is true. When we have untapped potential that we are ignoring because we want an easy way out, aiming for average can be lazy. If one can get past average, then he should try. But when we have spent years and years pushing ourselves endlessly to be better, to the point that we have pushed past our limit and have begun regressing, when we actually are average but are still clinging to the idea that we could be more, that is the point when we should accept normality. 

"The world ain't gonna stay like you imagine it, sweetheart."

Let us push until we reach the point where we cannot go any further, and then let us accept that point. It is okay to not be able to go further. If you can keep pushing, that's great. If you can't keep pushing, there is nothing wrong with being average. We have no reason to fear normality. We have no reason to fear not being everything we believed we were. We have no reason to fear the reality that we grow and we change. The world ain't gonna stay like you imagine it, sweetheart, and that's okay.

"He was feeling not-unique in the very best possible way."