2nd Place in Derby #314: Video Games!, with 164 votes!

If there's one thing we've learned from certain Japanese go-kart games, it's this: There's no use trying very hard at anything in life, because if you're too good you'll just be destroyed by a heat-seeking turtle shell bomb. 

That's right, it's a metaphor that applies to all aspects of life. For instance, why would I do my best at this shirt write-up when Sean, the other Shirt.Woot writer, can just lob a shell at me and destroy all my efforts? Might as well just bide my time with some middling prose and wait for whoever is doing the best job to get blowed-up. 

Patient mediocrity: That's the name of the game. If you can do well enough to not fall all the way behind, but not so well as to become a target for the various ways in which life punishes over-achievers, you'll cross the finish line in first place without ever performing particularly well. 

And that, my friends, is the American dream. 

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