Comfort in Average

In Vas, Square claims that by screening for birth defects, we are in fact making a decision as to what is good and what is bad. These sorts of screenings happen all the time. When children visit their pediatricians, their heights and weights are taken and plotted against the rest of the population of children of similar age and gender. I personally was always a small child and my height and weight were never anywhere near the measurements expected for a kid my age. I understand that to many parents it is important to see how their child is developing as compared to his or her peers, but by telling me I was shorter and skinnier than most, I always felt that these were negative qualities even though I had no real control over them. Any time we model anything with a normal distribution, we are suggesting that certain qualities are uncommon and sometimes undesirable. So why are we so comfortable being average? Why do we find comfort in the mean? Sure, being tall or having an above average IQ are enviable qualities to many, but being an equal distance away from the mean on the opposite side of the curve is rather undesirable. How is comparing yourself to everyone else a good indication of the quality of person you are? Every time we judge ourselves against the rest of the population, we are acknowledging that average is fine, and a divergence to one side is admirable and to the other is unsatisfactory.