I do not understand Mediocrity

I get this line a lot lately.

"All i want is a stable job and a steady income....oh, and a nice car"

Well, I may piss off a lot of people with this retort.....

"For you that is, you mediocre ******"

Mediocrity is by far( in my highest opinion ) a disease of the human race. This mentality of doing "just enough" or "cukup makan" is disgusting and should be stamped out once and for all........and so must all the monkeys in Parliament, ...but that is another story.

Please do not get me wrong here.

Having enough to get by and having enough to survive is not a crime. Quite frankly, the economy functions to allocate resources in such a way that in the end, not everyone gets into the top bracket.

No, I am not talking nor promoting elitism in any way. What i want to nail is the MENTALITY of a lot of people these days whom are just satisfied with attaining the bare minimum.

"Oh, as long as i pass university and get my degree and get a job, i've done it"

"I want a 9 to 5 job, steady pay, bonuses and a good pension plan"

May i ask these questions?

Why not just pass out of university, but FLY out with a First Class Honours Degree with an overseas attachment plus a portfolio of university projects and be head-hunted by Goldman Sachs (if you're from Business) or Norman Foster (if you're an architect) or be assigned to the latest AI hydrogen powered fighter jet project over at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works?

And after that, why not take the experience you have gained to start up you're own rival company to Goldman Sachs and Lockheed Martin?

And after that, why not buy up the rest of the oil reserves in the world, close down all those oil reserves and promote usage of an alternative fuel/ energy source produced by a company you started 2 years ago, which will be used to power vehicles designed and mass produced by another company you started 5 years ago, vehicles not only technologically superior to the computer on the latest Evo 9, but with the price tag of a 1940s VW Beetle?

And when you're 100 and you look back on all those companies you started, you cannot help but wonder....."what if i had merged all those into the next Tata Industries?......oh never mind, will leave a memo for my latest recruit from MIT, now finishing up at Harvard to do it.

It sounds far fetching, but why not aim high? Why be satisfied with the bare minimum?

Do you honestly think the technological achievements of the past century was by people satisfied with a 9 to 5 job?

For those reading this post on your brand new PCs, obviously containing at least a 80Gb SATA hard drive, do you honestly think you could enjoy that hard drive had it not been for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance by Peter Gundberg back in 1988?

Or maybe the chaps at home relaxing and watching a boring EURO 2008 match on the telly, do you think it would be possible without the satellites up there?

Those people never wanted anything but the best and they went out for the best. 100% commitment and effort, not a half hearted attempt at life and then justify the current status of affairs with the lame line:

"Its enough and i'm happy"

The human race is doomed the day mediocracy takes over. Its the day human innovation, grit, wit, ingenuity and the thirst for a better life ALWAYS ends and so begins our extinction.

Not from our destruction of the earth, not from a form of T-Virus accidentally released by the Umbrella Corporation (watch Resident Evil for an explanation),

but from our laziness and unwillingness to push ourselves to continue to be ingenious and to always look for something better.

For me, mediocracy is not a luxury i want. I have no intentions of working at a desk from 9 to 5, running someone else's company, making a few million. Money and comfort is not an issue here. Its how far i can push myself to, what and where i could be in the next one year, in the next one decade, in the next 50 years....

IT IS ALWAYS ABOUT WHERE AND HOW FAR YOU CAN GO.

And then where else to after that.


Cheers ,

Matrix