The average: not the absolute nor ideal – Sunday, December 04, 1960
Last week we closed with this comment: “Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought.”‘ And now we should like to turn to what follows from the thoughts we think: the doing, the learning, the practicing, the performing—and would preface what follows with a quotation from Carlyle: “Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.”1
This suggests of course, the willingness to participate, the willingness to work, the willingness to use as fully as we can the gifts, the talents, the abilities, and the opportunities that the Lord God has given. Some of us may waste time and opportunity by being fearful of doing too much. Some may impair capacity by holding back for fear of doing more than a fair share, by not wanting to do more than someone else does, by not wanting to exceed an average amount of effort or activity. But we shouldn’t let comparison with the average of others hold us back from being or doing our best.
Capacity is increased by practice and performance; and if we hold our performance to the pace of the less able, or the less willing, or even to the average, we retard our own improvement; we impair our own capacity; and we impoverish ourselves, comparatively, and others also. Worship of the average is wasteful. The Master’s parable of the talents still presents one of the most basic lessons of life—for all the servants in the parable did not receive the same. But even though there was not an equality of endowment, there was seemingly an equality of accountability in that they all were judged by what they did with what they had.
We cannot reach our full powers or capacity if we are held back by the average, by the problem of comparative performance. The average is only what it is because some do more and some do less, and it is not in any sense an absolute or an ideal. And insofar as it would lead us to seek a lesser level, the worship of the average is false and futile. All men and all things will only be raised as people are willing to improve performance. Again, in closing, we would quote Carlyle: “Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.”2
1Pascal’s Thoughts, Sec. ii:146
2Thomas Carlyle
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station KSL and the CBS Radio Network, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, December 4, 1960, 11:30 a.m. to 12.00 noon, Eastern Time. Copyright 1960
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December 04, 1960
Broadcast Number 1,633