Mediocrity

I’ll say it now – I get it. I am afraid of mediocrity too. But why?

It is actually exhausting trying to be good at everything – and why would we want that anyway? Ego? Human nature? Or is it because we need to stand out because the world is so competitive?

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I think we spend too much time being afraid of our own mediocrity.

We don't want to sing too loudly in case someone finds out that we don't have a voice like glass

We don't write music because we are not Mozart

We don't paint because we are not Picasso

We don't tell people that we love them because our voice might shake when we say it

We try to be pretty criers

We don't dance because we are not that good

Reality of our humanity is that we are all a little bit average at a lot of things

The truth is that we are all not that good

So stop holding yourself back from enjoying the things that you love

Because you are not a prodigy at everything

Scream the song at the top of your lungs

Confess your love and let your voice be shaky

Cry big ugly tears

Dance really badly

Because life is too short to be scared of being human.

(Whitney Hanson Poetry)

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How did reading this make you feel?

It made me think that a bit of is true but that I don’t worry about my mediocrity around my closest friends and family. In those safe relationships, I don’t hold back on sharing with them the first drafts of manuscripts, or hold back tears when I’m troubled. I think safe people earn the right to hear our vulnerabilities, and also that we need to trust that if we show the world our mediocrity, we always have these safe people to come back to for support and safety.