Nobody wants to be average. The word itself comes with a chill. Average food is not worth eating, nor is an average film worth watching. An average doctor is to be avoided at all costs. An average lover? Perish the thought! And how much worse, how much terribly worse, to be an average person.

The alternative, preferred by almost everyone, is to be exceptional. To prove that something special inside us has finally found its place of honor in the real world, either through one stunning achievement, or through a series of them that mount like stairs to an imagined, extraordinary self. Laying awake on stressful nights, we often contemplate this distant self, and treat our living, breathing self as if it were some embarrassing memory-in-waiting. 

Most of us will never be exceptional. The ma...