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.