Learning to celebrate mediocrity
Back after a more than a hiatus of 1.5 years and what a better way to come back than pour my heart out on ‘mediocrity’. It’s nothing but mediocre or worse, below average for me to write after so long!
All my life, I have had this incessant urge to win, to achieve, to defeat others and somehow be ‘at the top’. It is one of my deepest secrets that for the first 20 years of my life my daily prayer to God would have this one little wish “Please make me win everything, absolutely everything”. It took me years of self-introspection and months of depression and mental agony to realize it is okay to be mediocre.
And here is a note to self. A reminder of my trials with my own self and a reminder to appreciate the mediocrity within, be okay with it and even celebrate the ordinary! For we live only once and there would be no brilliance without tons of mediocrity!
Since the inception of my aware being, I have always been the best — the best at academics, the best at extra-curricular, the best with my parents, other’s parents, with children, you-name-it, and I was the best at it (conveniently ignored sports in my life :D). From Nursery to 12th standard, there was not one class where I was in second place. I have always been pushed by my parents to do more, be more, and just give more !!
Frankly, after 29 years on the face of this earth, it is just exhausting now. Plain exhausting. I want to be able to sit back and just relax. Just enjoy what I am doing, be in the moment without worrying about if I will “win” at it. I am not whining that I don’t enjoy, I do but there is this tingling sensation at the back of my head that keeps telling me to do more, to push more — to be the FIRST, that the current can be even BETTER.
In no way am I suggesting that don’t lift your finger and accept things as they are (the guilt of doing nothing kicking right in :D). All I am saying is that if there are times when you want to take an off, not do your best it should be alright. Life is not a constant race. A better package, a wealthier household, being the best daughter, the best wife, the best DIL — won’t make my life any happier if my mind is constantly in this race to outperform someone, something.
I genuinely want to embrace mediocrity. I want my mind to be okay knowing that it is perfectly normal to not be the greatest at everything. To not get everything at first. I want to be comfortable with taking more time without the perils of pressurizing myself to no end.
It’s baggage, a burden I have been carrying since adolescence. My parents don’t need to push me anymore, I do it to myself. Don’t get me wrong, this constant pressure of doing better has also driven me to do so much in life. I am where I am because of this driving energy to outperform. Maybe because I didn’t see a lot of failures while growing up, it crushes my heart and breaks my soul when I don’t do well at something I had planned for. I just can’t take failures. I want to tell myself life will give me both — failures and success and it is equally important to be able to deal with both.
And oh my God, I can’t even begin to talk about my constant need for validation. It is this hammering necessity like a woodpecker’s beak drilling into its favorite tree — that incessantly searches for praise, validation for doing my job. It’s like I am back in grade 5 and teachers giving me 2 stars one for getting a perfect score and another for good handwriting! It’s unstoppable. I am in the process of training my mind that it is okay to let go — if I start being the best at everything I do in my job, in my personal life — I will have nothing to learn and will but only die a slow and painful death from the mental pressures. I keep killing myself, hating on myself, wanting to do more and better, and hearing accolades for my work. I have this urge to keep asking my superiors, my partner, my family if I am doing okay and wanting to hear — “oh yes, you are doing the best! No one is doing better than you, absolutely no one” (Utterly shallow, I am aware!)
I am done comparing myself to others. Mediocre is also a relative term, relative to those below average and to those who are superlative. I, with utmost sincerity, want to tell myself that it is okay to be mediocre with respect to others. I will only strive to be at my own best. It is also okay to not be at my best always. I will try to just show up each day, every day. Take every day as it comes. And believe that the future is only going to get better from here!
Today, all my prayers seek the ability to be at peace with myself, to be okay with ‘mediocrity’, to normalize the normal, to celebrate just being okay in the moment.
To a happy new year and a resolution for 2022 and beyond!
