Is everyone bad at seeing things through to the end or is it just me?
The pursuit of accomplished mediocrity.
Dea, Jakarta, October 2nd.
Tell me, does this cycle sound familiar to you too?
You’re in the middle of a personal project you just started → A friend approaches you with an exciting prospect → You do your research and due diligence, because you know multitasking isn’t smart but you still want to be well-informed → You ask your friend about their progress, which you both know is small talk because you’ll eventually → give the new idea a try on your own time, and → you suddenly find yourself preoccupied with the new project, your last one dusting away in the depths of your Google Drive → Rinse and repeat.
I am but a mere mortal trying to make sense of the world, and every single time, it ends with me asking myself, “What am I supposed to do? Say no?”
For many of us, we continuously fall into this cycle in the name of self-actualisation, but our definition of it has probably been corrupted by the same capitalistic values that manage to instill in us this idea that a hobby is only valuable if you can monetise it. It’s almost impossible to feel content with what you’ve achieved when you’re constantly fed with images of success that are so terribly distorted.
Why, then, do we keep saying yes? All possible reasons could be broken down into two: inevitable disinterest, or fear. When your personal project is no longer giving you the intellectual stimulation or social validation that you’re looking for, starting a new one is the easiest way to regain that sense of purpose. As for fear; you’re scared of passing up an opportunity that may never find its way back to you.
Picture credits: https://john.do/emotional-journey-creating/
We’ve all been in that dark swamp of despair, and what hustle and grind success stories try to convince us is how you should aspire to be one of these two types of people: ones who power through the frustration, as opposed to ones who back out as soon as they realise the amount of work it’ll take from average to good and then to great. But… is it so bad to not want to achieve greatness? Why can’t we be in pursuit of mediocrity?
It should be okay to suck. It should be more than okay to try a thing and not like it and move on to the next. The fact that you’ve given it a try in the first place is already something to take pride in—even the smallest spark can start a fire.
Picture credits: https://www.lek.com/insights/ei/4-day-work-week-productivity
Another theory that (I may have possibly butchered and) would explain our tendency to start things is the theory of hedonic treadmill. This theory states that people will eventually get used to a positive or negative stimulus in their lives, and thus the emotional effects such as the initial excitement or sadness will reduce overtime and their levels of happiness will return to the “baseline”. When hedonic treadmill is brought up, it is usually within the context of amplifying your happiness and becoming an overall happier person by focusing on accumulating experiences rather than physical possessions.
To me, the project, the making-ideas-come-to-life, the being involved, all of that is the experience. These past 6 months in quarantine alone, I have:
Birthed this newsletter, the dear darling baby of my heart
Taught online classes and spoke on webinars
Started PPT Night, which I never imagined so many people would love
Looked for funding for Support Circle, the original dear darling baby of my heart
Volunteered to help a women empowerment organisation run their podcast
Happily involved myself in advislab
Applied to one more grad school despite having acceptance letters from two
Each item is a mix of boredom from the last one and fear of it being my only chance, in varying levels. I wouldn’t deny that being perpetually stuck in the zone of curiosity has the same annoying energy as that one friend who’s always so busy, but as long as it’s not someone else’s business you’re dipping your toes into, I don’t see how flirting with ideas that interest you would hurt anyone.
Although on that note, it’s only fair that I also talk about fear being a driving force in our life. What I always say is: don’t make decisions out of fear, including the fear of passing up an opportunity. In reality, some things do heavily depend on it being the right time, place, and person, and it may take a while for things to align that way again. The underlying issue I’ve found with this mindset, however, is that it’s making you wait around for that one ‘big break’ in fear of missing it when in reality, life is a series of consistent small and medium breaks whose meaning can only be discovered through hindsight.
In the end, the question we must ask ourselves is not if we want to do a thing, but rather if we want to commit to making small progress and possibly failing before getting better in that domain overtime.
So maybe it’s not that we’re bad at seeing things through the end. We are, quite simply, in the middle of it all, and at this point, it might be a lot of dead-ends or detours for you and a well-lit straight path for another.
When I was still working for this one multinational company, I’d attended a training session that was led by one of the Directors. I will always remember what he’d told us: what makes a person so good at their job is because they have both depth and breadth. He derived this from the T model of leadership, where a person must have a broad view of the organisation while being a true expert in one specific area.
Since I’m not in the position to lead any organisation, I’ll interpret this in my own way: depth pays the bills, and breadth makes me an interesting person.
And I think that’s what you and I should be allowed to want to be. An interesting person.