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Mediocrity: a consideration I might be comfortable with. For the last two-and-a-half years I have been trying to convince myself that I was someone I wasn’t. For the last two-and-a-half years I have allowed letters on a transcript to transcend their purpose into a personification of my soul. For two-and-a-half years the magical number, 94, has either contented or confounded me. I remember my first A-: 93.8 percent. It was a long, lonely night. I wrestle almost daily with the questions: am I an A student? Am I an A- student? Or am I a B student who's trying to convince himself he’s an A student? I still don’t know the answer. I’m approaching my senior year at BYU with a 3.95 GPA and I’m looking at my first B. Thankfully, however, offering a small redemptive quality, there will be a tiny positive mark following that blasted B. Whenever I use “blasted” in my blog, by the way, I really mean “damn,” or, more precisely, any number of expletives with more profane connotations. Am I mediocre? Maybe. But somehow, the thought offers solace. I don’t think being mediocre means being common, dull, or barley adequate; I think being mediocre means being at peace when you're not the best. If an external, arbitrary entity, a construction that crumbles over time, labels me as mediocre, I can still be happy knowing that my wife, my son, my family, and my God, the relations that will endure beyond time, see me as exceptional.

Besides: it’s nice knowing the best are intimately dependent on me.