It is 5 years and I still Dream about Mediocrity
‘It’s always going to be a nightmare’
‘Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself but talent instantly recognizes genius’
My award for the best graduating student in my undergrad should grant me a direct ticket to any of the IVY’s League.
As a matter of fact, I was not only passionate about good grades, I was passionate about leaving a trail, no matter how tiny it was. I had ambition, determination and whatever I believed it takes to become the envisioned me.
I was certain of my strategies to improve my life. I have always been koinophobic. To live never to have lived. Yet, I was scared of leaving my comfort zone.
‘It’s called a comfort zone for a reason. Once you step outside of it, you’ll have to put yourself in difficult situations that will make you uncomfortable’- Ayodeji Awosika
Its 5 years since undergrad and it is been about a sense of mediocrity
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Sometimes I ask myself what mediocrity really is?. Is mediocrity a result of choice? An acceptance of fate? The unfortunate nature of being limited to resources?
Is mediocrity the inability to go the extra mile to do the ‘extra’ after coming back from a job that demands your attention and brain from 7 am to 7 pm?
Is mediocrity the endless and addictive use of social media in our very limited spare time? Is mediocrity the countless times we spend unproductively going through videos, photos, liking, and commenting with no intent to actually be the person on that post?
Does extreme procrastination contribute to mediocrity? Procrastination evolves from seconds to minutes, to hours, to days and days to weeks and weeks to months that overlap to years?
Does mediocrity feel like getting choked, enslaved, and trapped in a toxic workplace? On a desk doing the job you so much hate because it pays the bills and keeps you busy even at your own mental health detriment?
Am I right to think and feel that mediocrity is laying heaps of excuses on why we should be what we are not? Or is mediocrity joining the crowd to endlessly complain about the system and status quo of things rather than see opportunities?
Mediocrity is a disease because it infects society in the same fashion as sickness ails a person and because its effects are debilitating and damaging. If it is identified and countered, its symptoms can be reduced or suppressed, but it can never be eliminated like a virus. If ignored, its spread can be extensive and the result acute; worse still, if denied, its influence can be all-encompassing. And mediocrity’s power resides primarily in two such consequences: it self-replicates, generating and reinforcing the very environment in which it thrives; and, the more it comes to dominate public thought, the harder mediocrity becomes to recognize.
Mediocrity is sweet, comfortable, and has no stress.
The presence of mediocrity is discernable and it shows itself everywhere and yet is never properly identified.
It is so entrenched, that the problem for many people is no longer seen. People can no longer imagine a world outside the expected illusionary boundaries.
Mediocrity is a result of inaction or incompetence coupled with occasional excessive or extreme procrastination. Mediocrity is a contagion and remains very difficult to define.
Mediocrity shows its true self through apathy, indifference, doubt, insecurity, superficiality, vagueness, fear, timidity, compromise, fear of rejection, inertia, moral indignation, pettiness, stubbornness.
It can be mistaken for calmness when the true feeling is panic.
Sometimes when I walk home, watching everyone so busy with life, I try to imagine what is going through people’s minds. Most actions and moves spell greed, extreme love for money, all embedded in a triangular lifestyle with an absolute zero intent to leave a mark in the hearts of other people.
People no longer care, people no longer have opinions about anything. We have all been engrossed in the repetitive nature of our ‘so busy life’. We respond with a sigh of indifference to issues that warrant our opinions.
‘Mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people’- Joseph Joubert
Mediocrity is a shallow soul. Living every day like we never lived.
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