The Mockery of Mediocrity
Once upon a time there lived a young girl in a small town. She made good grades and really loved her math classes. She held down regular jobs, padded her pocketbook, and applied for colleges.
This young girl went on throughout her time in college getting more good grades, holding board positions within the honors program, and even managed to secure paying internships for the summer.
Graduation arrived and all the hoopla that went along with it. But it also passed. In its wake came something unexpected.
The Game of Life.
It wasn’t fun to play, she quickly learned.
Bills were to be paid, groceries were to be bought, dinners were to be planned and cooked.
Hours were to be logged in front of a computer all in the name of a paycheck.
She was determined to weave in fun because life couldn’t be this bland for the next 40 years.
Surely.
She played tennis in the evenings, she trained for 5Ks with weekly runs on the greenway, and she went out on the weekends with her friends.
Little by little, the fun started to feel bland too.
Her friends started to buy houses and upgrade their cars from high school. Bachelorette parties became a standard routine along with wedding invitations. The baby carriages weren’t far away, she could tell.
This game seemed over already. Won, so to speak.
All the fun gone, and replaced with responsibilities and talks of investments and vacations and wine of the month clubs.
The drudge of the day job began to take hold more and more. The foundation begin to settle. In.
For good enough.
For the house with the yard.
For the family vacations.
For comfort.
For security.
This young girl was confused and a little disappointed. Had she signed up for this too, unbeknownst to her?
When was her consent given to live a life of comfort?
The mediocrity of it all mocked her. It tormented her with visions of living this semi-ordinary, supposedly happy life for the next 40 years.
Without requiring any decision on her part, the world interjected. Laid off with a 2 week severance check.
It was the get out of jail card she needed.
But the question is - where is yours?
If responsibility is the trump card that keeps us playing the game of so-so, then I counter it with “responsible to whom” and “to what”?
Can you fathom the long term effects of not breaking out of the hum-drum?
When you understand that you have been conditioned to play this game your whole life, then it becomes easier to back away and redesign.
To Return To You.