There are some benefits in simply being average

Jul 2 2008 by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post

CALL me pessimistic but I’m not expecting anything interesting to happen today.

Exciting events take place at the beginning and the end of things, not in the middle, and today, July 2, is the very middle of the year.

At 12pm, 182½ days will have passed since New Year’s Day and there will be another 182½ to go before we begin celebrating the end of 2008.

It is, in fact, the median of the year, which, as I learnt in a GCSE maths lesson, is a sort of average.

Average – such a horrible word, beaten only in the offensive stakes by “sensible”.

Who wants to be sensible? Though it is quite a good thing to be some of the time as long as it doesn’t make you afraid to have fun.

But at least “sensible” shows promise. At least “sensible” implies an element of choice – of cheese and pickle sandwiches over potentially toxin ridden smoked salmon blinis; of a desk filled with papers instead of a bungee cord; of a spouse and 2.4 children over a harem of Playboy bunnies.

It suggests that you can one day, usually with plenty of forethought and perhaps after filling in a risk assessment form in triplicate, learn to throw caution to the wind.

The word “average” on the other hand implies you are doomed – destined from birth to be the norm with no choice in the matter, a case of nature versus nurture.

As you grow older you tend to learn to be more sensible but can you unlearn being average?

This is clearly a question for a day when things are happening, not for the most average one of the year.

Instead, this is a day for sitting on the fence, eating plain omelettes and ignoring even the slightest suggestion of adventure.

It is a day neither for indulgence nor for abstinence but for middle-of-the-road behaviour – safety, simply, in safety.

Today is the annual equivalent of “over the hump Wednesday”, the phrase used by people so busy looking forward to the weekend that they have forgotten how to see the present.

Once these 24 hours have passed there is more of 2008 behind us than ahead which means the shadow of those long shattered New Year’s resolutions will finally dissolve in the July sunlight.

Sometimes the middle of a thing is the best – the third day of a week’s holiday when you have shaken off the stresses of usual life but haven’t yet started planning how you will get to the airport; the in-flight movie; the part of a novel where you have befriended the characters and still have 200 pages before you have to let them go; the stage in life when you have learned to be comfortable with who you are; the few months when you are neither preparing for Christmas nor recovering from it.

I am aware announcing so publicly that I am expecting nothing of interest to happen today is like waving a pitchfork on the top of a mountain during a thunderstorm.

The superstitious will be relieved to learn that, as I type every word, my palms are resting on the top of my desk, which, if not actually made of wood, is doing a very good impression of it.

Have I jinxed the day? Instead of 24 hours of comforting mundanity am I now destined to 1,440 minutes of the unexpected?

If this came in the form of a winning Lotto ticket, a promotion or even a bunch of flowers then this would not be entirely unwelcome. But if I arrive home this evening to find my house crushed by a falling satellite I would be far less blase.

The truth is that as much as we sometimes crave excitement we are happiest following some sort of routine.

An evening spent with old friends you have learned to forgive (and they you) can be more fulfilling than a party of semi-strangers. A cup of tea quenches your thirst more completely than a glass of Cristal.

And a day in July can be more quietly satisfying than a New Year’s Eve spent queuing with half of Liverpool outside a pub.

lauradavis@dailypost.co.uk