We’ve had a heartbreaking event this week at team Spencer St End. We send our body weight in love, to our fearless and wonderful Daniel James, who has said goodbye to his beautiful mum this week. Daniel, we love you. And we dedicate this week to a cracker of a broad, a wonderful mum, and a bloody good human (who wouldn’t have needed to read this week’s article) - to Denise Ann James - you made a beautiful man and the world is enriched for your profound moment on earth. Vale x
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The problem with EVERYTHING in these human lives of ours, is that we’ve been trying too hard. Too hard to be good at stuff. Too hard to excel. Too hard to find ourselves in the top ten of something or other – or twenty or fifty. But what a folly - being good at stuff is actually boring, or so I’ve heard. That glazed look on the faces of people who are good at stuff is not concentration, it’s boredom. What is left, when you are the best at something, or god forbid, everything? What is there left to do in life, when you’re killing it? What happens in those dark hours at night when you’ve got nothing else to do than ruminate on memories of success? I shudder.
If you are successful and killing it – you can stop reading. We love you, but this is not for you.
I don’t want to toot my trumpet too loudly, but perhaps my greatest success has been finally unlocking the ingredient for a lifetime of happiness, and its simple - mediocrity. I’m in the top one hundred thousand of those in the middle. I am an excellent mediocre. I aim for the middle, striving to be good enough, but not too good. I realised early on that I was never going to be the best at anything. I thought I might be the best sprinter, but no. Or, the best at violin, really no. Or the smartest, funniest, coolest – no, no, no. But the sting of being mediocre has dulled now I’ve realised, I was sold a dummy. Being good at stuff is bad.
We were told as kids that somehow if we were good at stuff we’d be happy. NOT TRUE. I worry for the children of today who are likely being sold the same lie. Work hard, get really good at something and then enjoy the spoils of perfection and excellence. I worry that the kids are still being told to do their maths homework, and clean their bedrooms, to be their best selves. What sort of treachery took place to have humans believe in such crap. Nothing good comes from being good at stuff. Once you’re good, people want more. You want more. ‘Being good’ is an insatiable hunger that is never sated. But being mediocre is the gift that keeps on giving. It is eternally satisfying.
This realisation began to take hold in my early 20s. I would find myself in groups of friends who would pass the guitar around to each other and sing songs. Mainly though, the guitar was passed to the dudes in the group who had already cottoned on, I imagine, that being a bit shit at something should not be a deterrent. Not one of them seemed concerned that they were out of tune or rhythmless – no, they closed their eyes and sang Pearl Jam like it aint no thang.
The others in the group, mainly the chicks, and likely less mediocre, believed in the lie. Unless they were really good, they believed they shouldn’t take up space or suggest that while they were not good, they enjoyed singing and playing moderate guitar. No, they believed that unless you were Eddie Van Halen, you should leave the playing of music to others who knew more and were better than them. But it dawned on me, if I became as unconcerned with the requirement to be good as all the dudes in my life, I would also revel in those Pearl Jam jams and happily present a tuneless and rhythmless performance.
What the hell had we been thinking? Our Joy is found in being a bit shit.
So, after that epiphany, I picked up the guitar and started to teach myself some chords. That was about twenty years ago, and I’ve only really learnt about 8 chords during that timeframe – which makes me utterly crap at guitar, extremely mediocre AND JOYFUL. Why do we limit what we do, because of this imaginary requirement that we should only do things that we are good at. If I hadn’t cottoned on to this in my early 20s, I wouldn’t have done anything – because as we’ve discussed, I am a middlewoman. A woman in the middle. I am an essential component to a well-structured society – there are those that are incredible, those - less so, and those that are so mediocre it barely deserves a mention. We are the beige in the background. The building just out of focus in a Paris landscape. The cow that now longer gives milk but is good mates with all the other cows and is good to have in the paddock.
Reach for the middle my mediocre friends.
Say yes, knowing that people might wince when you start singing.
Disregard the metrics of success instead, redefine them. Success is persistence in the face of being a bit shit. Like, really.
Join me in this mediocre revolution that probably won’t take hold because it’s a pretty mediocre philosophy.
Be slightly out of focus – and live a long and very very happy life.