Being OK with Not Being Extraordinary

Re:Being OK with Not Being Extraordinary by 1auralynn on Wednesday November 23, 2022 @03:22PM (#33724054)

There was a part in Isaac Asimov's autobiography that stuck with me, where in high school he wasn't the best student in any subject. However, he was the SECOND best at EVERY subject, whereas the "best" students were only the best at one subject. So I think for some people, there is value in not being the "best" at anything but being good a lots of things regardless of overall ranking.

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Re:Being OK with Not Being Extraordinary by etrautmann on Wednesday November 23, 2022 @03:36PM (#33724201)

This is what I’ve been implicitly optimizing for my whole life. Breadth over depth, but applied to a field. Pretty good at a lot of things to enable synthesis and creativity across domains. I’m very comfortable not maxing out a narrow set of sun skills, since 95% if the effort goes into the last little bit if performance, and the opportunity cost is then many other skills (or experiences or whatever)

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Re:Being OK with Not Being Extraordinary by myself248 on Wednesday November 23, 2022 @05:00PM (#33725064)

A jack of all trades, master of none, is oftentimes better than a master of one.

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Re:Being OK with Not Being Extraordinary by Dylan16807 on Thursday November 24, 2022 @04:10AM (#33729204)

Trying to be second best in a large group will also destroy you.

But okay, let's say 95th percentile to make it more achievable. Well, a normal person can reach 95th percentile in several things, but that's out of a list of hundreds of things or more. Being 95th percentile in most things is not going to happen, let alone all things.

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