22 Sept 2020

It’s come to my attention in the last few weeks, that I don’t have a lot of confidence when faced with people who are particularly good at something.

I have a couple of friends who are very talented in the sewing/knitting/crocheting area. I would not dream of gifting them something I had sewed. Let’s forget knitting or crocheting because I’m never liable to finish one of these projects I’ve started.

People coming to dinner at my house who are especially good cooks will most likely be given a cooked chicken from the supermarket and salad. I wouldn’t dream of trying one of the made-up recipes on them. My family get that privilege 🙂

I used to enjoy playing the piano, in my own style (melody with right hand, organ chords with left hand). Until my oldest son grew up and got much better at piano playing than me, that is. The electric piano at home is now pretty much a dust collector.

I enjoy singing – in the car and on my own – but lower my volume when I’m around good singers.

I have my talents – we all do. But I don’t like showing my attempts to people who are genuinely talented.

In a lot of areas, I’m very comfortably placed dead centre of the bell curve.

Maybe it’s time to embrace my mediocrity? We don’t all have to be very good at everything. If I was good at everything I attempted, my friends would all suffer from lower self esteem, because they wouldn’t be special any more, would they? It’s my duty as a good friend to let them have their moments of glory.

I did work with someone once who – jokingly, I’m assured – informed me I represented the lowest common denominator. This person is still alive, and I didn’t even make him a special batch of brownies with the secret laxative ingredient, in honour of this kind comment.

At the time, and even now, it didn’t really bother me that much. Mainly because I’m quite happy being one of the ordinary people, with an ordinary level of intelligence, ordinary looks and ordinary lots of other stuff. Sub-ordinary height and Extra-ordinary personality, of course 🙂

If it wasn’t for us ordinary people out there, the expectations would be too high for everyone else 🙂

I’m embracing mediocrity for the greater good 😌