Surrendering to mediocrity

Some of us start out with dreams of becoming doctors, lawyers, teachers, craftsmen or writers. When I was little, I wanted to be both an astronaut and an artist but I was told I would have to be smart to be an astronaut. Since I didn't believe I was, I surrendered to discouragement. 

My first job was in high school, working the grill at a major fast food chain. That chain was very skilled at training me to be a good assembly line worker. Processing requests, filling orders and staying busy until my shift was over. There was no time to cast vision, dream or think outside my work experience. There was no need because it was all done for me. They only needed employees to process orders cost-effectively and efficiently. Nothing personally vision-related happened until my shift ended and I went home, exhausted, stinking of oil and sweat.

If you go to that chain today, it's easy to find an employee to process your order but rarely do you find one who delights. It's also easy to find businesses excelling at creating those kinds of mediocre workers. 

The problem is that it's too easy to surrender. It's hard to fight for what you want and it's hard to act on your dreams but it's important. I'm sometimes jealous of my peers who didn't let that happen to them, because I learned it when I was older.

Whatever your job, we habitually have the tendency to find ourselves processing orders. The selfish part us that wants to stay behind the scenes, keep our heads down and plow away at our inboxes as they fill. We often find ourselves, seldom dreaming of better ways to create and share new ideas to make our community better, happier places. We have often settle for processing orders and running along a razors' edge of burnout.

Then we gripe.

The selfish me that wants to surrender? He tells my dreams to "shut up and get back to work" because mediocrity wants to become the king of all minutiae and offer perpetual discouragement to the me I want to fight for.

We have to kick him away, carve out time and get back to dreaming big. Because if we don't, we surrender to mediocrity.