The fear of mediocrity

“The future came and went in the mildly discouraging way that futures do.”

― Neil Gaiman, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

We recently started watching the show “Good Omens” on Amazon Prime, and are thoroughly enjoying it. The first thing I thought of when we were a few minutes in was that I need to read more Terry Pratchett books, since I had enjoyed the two I read so much. But there were some things in the show that really struck a chord with me. I think that through all my health anxiety and contemplations of life, I always believed that there would be some “great successes”, a few “this was worth the fight” moments and milestones that would come our way eventually. I used to shudder at the idea of mediocrity.

Being in a recent career slump has reinforced that thought quite a bit. I find myself thinking of colleagues with disdain as “so mediocre” and influencing me to be the same way. I suppose I am one of those people that has to be challenged to go outside of my comfort zone, then panic and fret about it, eventually shine at the task and then bask in the glory of a job well done. Dramatic, much?

However, recently I thought that even if our life ends up being unremarkable, that is probably not such a bad thing after all. Of course, it would hopefully still be filled with a lot of beautiful things along the way, and many reasons to be grateful and feel fulfilled. But thinking of Milton’s famous line “They also serve who only stand and wait”, reinforces the idea that even if there is no momentous grand success or breakthrough that we achieve in our lives (whether in our career or through other life’s purposes), we can still do a pretty good job of contributing towards humankind. I suppose that sets a good baseline to work with. I’ll leave you with another one from Terry Pratchett.

“IT WASN’T A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. It should have been, but that’s the weather for you. For every mad scientist who’s had a convenient thunderstorm just on the night his Great Work is finished and lying on the slab, there have been dozens who’ve sat around aimlessly under the peaceful stars while Igor clocks up the overtime.”

― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens