What happens when your A game becomes your C- game? Society is conditioned to celebrate success, and recently popular is the idea of even celebrating failure, but mediocrity is seen as an abomination. No one dare say they are mediocre at what they do for fear of receiving a serious side eye. Success comes with smiles and high fives and failure comes with pep talks and pity, but mediocre comes with judgment. That's why "my friend" dared not admit that she'd existed at less than her best this school year. My friend was afraid of the judgement. She had been on her A game for so long and to fall so far from grace into the mediocre was just embarrassing. She'd attempted to rationalize and reason her behavior: Did she simply not give a flying rats ass anymore? Were there internal or external factors? Is it okay to kill Wonder Woman? (<-- That itself deserves its own blog post!) It was hard to just sit in the fact that "my friend" had simply been okay with, ahem, being average. I think about it as it relates to my children. I am quick (on the ready) to share my kids successes and failures. The failures provide comedy and an opportunity for me to get advice from others. The successes make me look and feel good. I never call my friends or share stories at work of Marcus playing a mediocre volleyball game or Katie getting into the College of DuPage or Kayla having an okay day at work. Why? Why do we despise average? Is it because, going back to the example of my children, that I'd have to be accountable for that mediocrity and have to ask and potentially answer some questions about it? But that's where my friend found herself this year--average/mediocre at best. She didn't know how to feel about it. She really didn't know what to do with it, so I write for "her" asking: Is being average okay? It ain't sexy! But it ain't hideous either! Here's what I told "my friend:" Sometimes it's about recognizing where you are and if that place is mediocrity and you survived it, then that's okay because you survived it! What would you say to her?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorDocumenting my evolution by filling in space and matter one word at a time. Archives
March 2023
Categories |