The Merit of Mediocrity

I’ve been itching to write this. My fingers are fizzy with delight to announce to you all that I am mediocre at many things. Better yet, I am elated to inform you how okay I am with this mediocrity.

You see, we’ve been told a big ol’ lie about being average.

For years and years, I thought the thing I would excel at was just around the next corner, my next career move, the next new moon, yada yada. As a child, I played the piano and the fiddle, took part in Speech and Drama, and did some Irish dancing lessons. I was average at best at all of those pursuits, except Irish dancing, at which I was atrocious.

Since then, I did a degree and a masters, both of which I did moderately well in. I have tried my hand at various careers; lecturer, Irish language officer, civil servant, back to lecturer and currently, journalist.

I wasn’t necessarily bad at any of them but I certainly wasn’t outstanding either. I did my best, most of the time, (hello, I was in my 20s, I was focused on other areas of my life too) but none of them were the life-altering career I thought I was on the precipice of finding.

Outside of work, I am a reasonably good writer, cook, reader and thinker. I don’t have a Booker prize in me but I know some people can resonate with some of what I write about. I have a good eye for fashion, I am not going to blow your mind every time you open instagram, but I am alright at getting an outfit together.

When you work in a University, you quickly notice the students and especially the staff excel in one area, ranging from manuscripts to the declensions of Irish grammar (I worked in the Irish Department, can you tell?)

During my period of attending and working there I never found the singular area of a language I could happily hone in on for several years, so I didn’t do a PhD. I used to think I would return to it after a few years when I stumbled upon the precious thing and reader, I haven’t.

Thinking back, I felt a sense of failure with a generous side of self-doubt about the elusive thing and how others seemed to come across it so easily. I hadn’t fully communicated this until I recently listened to Graham Norton talk about his life on the excellent podcast, How to Fail with Elizabeth Day. He said he felt he was never particularly wonderful at one thing but had come to accept and celebrate being reasonably good at many things.

Now, you might think this is some classic self-deprecating bullsh*t but hearing Graham talking about something I have felt so deeply but couldn’t communicate has helped me reframe how I viewed myself. I have thought about it often since and it has given me a deep sense of liberation about how I live my life.

Part of what I had internalised from society’s obsession with excellence was detrimental to my self-development and in turn, self esteem. I (wrongly) believed to be part of something wasn’t ‘enough’, unless you were the best or nearing the top of the class.

I can and do turn my hand to plenty of challenging, creative projects because I have the freedom to do so, not obstructed or consumed by one thing, but rather motivated by the manifold. I have been granted the gift of plenty.