The Illusion of the Average

Modern marketing and social media know what "people like us" buy, watch, or follow. Personality tests sort us into types. We compare people with others of the same age based on a few conversations and encounters. But have any of us ever actually met the average person?

The truth? None of us has, because the average is simply a number created by smoothing out the differences between real people. An average may tell us something about a population, but it tells us very little about the person standing in front of us. The trouble begins when we start seeing ourselves through these numbers and labels: "I'm an introvert, so I can't..." or "People my age don't..." or "The millennial are the people who..." Without realizing it, we begin to normalize ourselves and others, reducing individual experiences to general categories. In Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl Jung reminds us that "there is no recipe for living that suits all cases." Every individual is unique, with an unrepeatable history, wounds, and gifts.

Don't get me wrong, we are shaped by our upbringing, culture, language, and experiences. But we are never simply the product of any one of them. Our identity is far more complex than the circumstances that surround us.

So, when we make assumptions or guesses, it is worth asking whether it is describing who we are or whether we are shrinking ourselves to fit it. Generalizations can inform us, averages can help us understand a group but it does not define our individuality.