I am good - Mea Culpa

The world celebrates mediocrity...excellence scares the world.
I have come to realise that if you are intelligent, efficient, independent and have a brain and can use it - you are going to be successful but LONELY. It starts from school days when if you are good in sports/academics and God forbid, both, then the label sticks you are all brawn no brain/geek etc. and if you are really good, then you will find yourself isolated, with no real friends or worse some others who will attempt to prove that you really are not as good as you are made out to be. Whereas, if you are the average kid with ok looks, passable brains and an easy disposition, you are likely to have hordes of friends.

If you are intelligent and good looking, that is the final nail, so to speak. Have you observed when you comment about somebody and say that he/she is not good looking, pat the reply will come "He/She is very nice though" - as if being good looking and nice are mutually exclusive! On the flip side try telling people how gorgeous or successful someone is and the retort is very likely to be "But you know,........ is not right in her/his life"!! Why this attitude, why is it so difficult to accept excellence in someone? Even proverbs - "Too good to be true" espouse this.

I am of course saying all this assuming the person in question is not an arrogant know-it-all, in which case the freeze treatment maybe justified. I am talking of a talented, intelligent, good looking person, efficient in whatever they do - your average person but efficient and successful - why is such a person not accepted and made to feel loved? Why do people accept as friends everybody but the accomplished person? And if that person is a woman - FINITO - OVER!

Does an efficient and good looking person evoke a feeling of threat or does it bring to the fore their own inadequacies? As life goes on beyond school, even at work, social organizations, the efficient person will be appreciated and congratulated, then put in a trophy case and forgotten. This person will be admired but will he/she have friends who will horse around, do nothing 'meaningful' but just chill - no! for that the choice will be the run- of- the -mill, average person!

This paradox is strange - everyone is expected to strive for excellence but for the few who do achieve it - they find themselves isolated and lonely? Then why do we strive for something which will not make us happy but desolate? Success in material terms is cold comfort in our lonely hours, so isn't it better to be also - ran and have 10 people rooting for you than come first and have everybody leave you to celebrate your victory alone? It is as if the person who is accomplished and intelligent has a fatal flaw - as id it is his/her fault - and that they should confess "I am good - Mea Culpa"....Why??