What do you fear more?
failure?
or mediocrity?
Both are a social construct
Alone in the woods — it’s annoying when you are building a small shed, and the structure collapses somehow
It’s annoying, but
You’re not a “failure”
You’re not a “mediocrity”
Those terms exist only in the society
Now what do you fear more?
Being a FAILURE?
Or MEDIOCRITY?
It matters
We have different negative complex around each
And we can even have different COPING complexes
For instance perhaps we glorify failure — for it’s a a proof of courage and effort,
and a war scar
and a rite of passage
But does it make it less of a failure?
Was failure the goal?
So we better be careful with making positive that which is negative
Then again why is it negative in the first place? Like we said, it’s just a construct
Like with optimism vs pessimism — you’d rather have neither
You’d rather have realism
You’d rather have reality
It’s not a failure — it’s an iteration
Now what is worse, failure or mediocrity?
Mediocrity implies languishing, and low standards
In a sense it implies a lasting failure
Unlike a failure from which you rose stronger — and overcame
This one is a failure from which you did not emerge stronger, but stayed weak and weaker
If viewed this way, mediocrity is worse than failure
And perhaps that’s what you truly fear?
Not the “glorious failure”, the hero who did the RIGHT THING, even though he failed
But the pathetic failure,
After which you’re worse off than before
And there’s no silver lining whatsoever
And everything you are is but reminder of this failure
Now,
Why does it matter to consider it?
Because much like we rationalise failure, to give ourselves courage to DO WHAT IS RIGHT,
Likewise we need a similar rationalisation, coping, to deal with the threat of MEDIOCRITY, the LASTING FAILURE, the total collapse,
And
You don’t even have to admit it consciously
At all likelihood it’s planted in your subconscious
When you’re experiencing fear
OR EVEN WHEN YOU’RE NOT
Perhaps it’s so deep that it doesn’t even reveal fear consciously
It merely makes you blind
So terrified you are of the UNENDING FAILURE OF MEDIOCRITY
And therefore utterly blind and paralysed
Oh and ironically, it would seem that mediocrity we get
For indeed most man don’t even have one spectacular failure to their name
Instead a never-ending failure of mediocrity, of just being mediocre
FEAR OF FAILURE makes you take no risks,
So that it guarantees you become a mediocrity
And perhaps fear of MEDIOCRITY, of the unending failure,
makes you EVEN MORE likely to become a MEDIOCRITY indeed,
Go figure
So
Go ahead ask yourself those questions
Make it real in your mind
Because likely it’s already real in your subconscious
And then,
Make it NOT-real again
Make yourself ALONE IN THE FOREST again
Forget the society
Forget the ego,
and just TRY different things
Life is a playground