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How do You cope with being mediocre?

teezzy

Banned
I'm aware that I'm fairly average in most ways. It takes a lot of pressure off. I set small goals for myself and achieve them slowly but surely. That makes me happy.
 

Moogle11

Banned
I’ve been pretty fortunate to be pretty successful in my career and make ok money and marry an awesome woman etc. Still probably just average as we don’t make that much money, my wife isn’t super model hot etc.

To me it’s all about being happy with what I have and that I never had crazy lofty dreams or cared about being rich or having crazy expensive things. I just wanted to be stable financially, able to afford a decent house that didn’t have to be in any kind of dream location (or even the nicest part of a city), and able to easily afford hobbies like gaming and some nice (but not extravagant) vacations while still saving plenty for retirement (meaning able to maintain standard of living, not live it up in paradise).

If I didn’t have that, I’d be focused on how to achieve it. Be it getting more education, a career change or moving from a pricey city to a lower cost of living area where money goes further. Again, I never cared about being rich, famous or making any kind of difference. I’ve always been self focused and just wanted to achieve enough to have the money to live a nice, simple life worn relatively low stress. Thus can’t offer advice to competitive, driven people who’ll only be happy if they achieve their lofty goals, impress others, earn recognition etc.
 
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MetalAlien

Banned
I embrace it...

giphy-downsized-large.gif
 
It's actually not difficult to do crazy shit, if you want it.

There is a lot of protection in being mediocre.
That's why most people prefer to go that route.
 
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I had a bit of a career as an electronic musician in the early 2000s.

Had my own project with which I had a bit of success internationally, but the thing my best friend did back then went through the roof with one of the biggest trance/rave hits of that time.
So we went touring all over the globe. I have been playing music in front of 10000s of people in stadiums in north and south america, europe and asia. I was one of the first people playing a Techno liveact on the sugar loaf in Rio de Janeiro.
I lived in Tokyo with my japanese model girlfriend for a few years, DJing in a local club every two weeks.
For a while I have been in airplanes like two to three times per week.
Sniffed cocaine off the butt of a columbian whore in Cali.
Was driven around in those white limousines in the US. One time when we were on the route 66, we watched a porn movie in the car. Nice story to tell.
Fucked lots girls on aftershow parties.
Met a lot of famous musicians. Even some notorious producers from back in the 80ies that were my idols when I was a little boy.
And a lot of other things....

The problem with all of this is if you are a normal person and not a psycho, the people you like will like you less and less because of your success, and you get a lot of bootlickers telling you how great you are that you don't care about instead.
Normal people will start to behave strange around you.
You will always live in fear, that your success won't hold on (hint: for 99,99% of musicians it doesn't).
You will start to feel like an impostor.
This life is so tiresome. You will more and more crave to just sit and home with your girlfriend and watch some boring TV show. That, or you become a drug addict.

I am happy I experienced all that stuff, but I am very happy now going back with just being mediocre again for many years.

So, yeah. There is a lot of protection in mediocrity.
Embrace it.
 
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BluRayHiDef

Banned
I had a bit of a career as an electronic musician in the early 2000s.

Had my own project with which I had a bit of success internationally, but the thing my best friend did back then went through the roof with one of the biggest trance/rave hits of that time.
So we went touring all over the globe. I have been playing music in front of 10000s of people in stadiums in north and south america, europe and asia. I was one of the first people playing a Techno liveact on the sugar loaf in Rio de Janeiro.
I lived in Tokyo with my japanese model girlfriend for a few years, DJing in a local club every two weeks.
For a while I have been in airplanes like two to three times per week.
Sniffed cocaine off the butt of a columbian whore in Cali.
Was driven around in those white limousines in the US. One time when we were on the route 66, we watched a porn movie in the car. Nice story to tell.
Fucked lots girls on aftershow parties.
Met a lot of famous musicians. Even some notorious producers from back in the 80ies that were my idols when I was a little boy.
And a lot of other things....

The problem with all of this is if you are a normal person and not a psycho, the people you like will like you less and less because of your success, and you get a lot of bootlickers telling you how great you are that you don't care about instead.
Normal people will start to behave strange around you.
You will always live in fear, that your success won't hold on (hint: for 99,99% of musicians it doesn't).
You will start to feel like an impostor.
This life is so tiresome. You will more and more crave to just sit and home with your girlfriend and watch some boring TV show. That, or you become a drug addict.

I am happy I experienced all that stuff, but I am very happy now going back with just being mediocre again for many years.

So, yeah. There is a lot of protection in mediocrity.
Embrace it.

GTFO. The OP asked for advice about how to deal with mediocrity and you respond with a braggadocious recount of your glory days under the guise that it serves as a frame of reference by which you can speak on mediocrity and its positive attribute.

Oh, please. No one asked about your model girlfriend or how you sniffed coke off a prostitute's butt or how you banged a lot of chicks after shows. This isn't the first time that you've brought up the long line of women you've been with, braggart.
 
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Riven326

Banned
When I was younger I had a lot of dreams. As I grew older, and I failed to accomplish almost all of them, I found myself racked with sorrow. I hated my own inability and weakness. I hated that I'd failed. Ultimately, I had to give up on even trying to " succeed", which admittedly falls within my own metric, in order to keep on living. Whether I was average or below average from the start I don't know. The fact of the matter is, I am a failure now. I realize as long as I have time that it's possible to create change, but I'm not sure the struggle is worth it. Thus my question on how to cope with knowledge I am mediocre... Also, is it bad to believe yourself to be mediocre? Not everyone can be outstanding so some people have to be. Do you believe it's objectively possible to deem some people mediocre and others a success? Is there a basic criteria?
Choose not to be mediocre.
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
I’m moderately successful and tell myself I’m not a failure. I have friends and no man is a failure that has friends.
 

Barrage

Member
For anyone who has had someone they love pass young, the general regret is that you wish you had spent more time with them-not that they had spent more of the time they had "pursuing greatness."

Ain't much difference between a great 90 year old and a mediocre one.

At every level of sucess (and I'm someone who could be considered very lucky in a much-loved profession or completely mediocre, depending on how one wants to look at it), you can choose to resent the next man ahead of you, or enjoy the rung you're on.

The more you know somebody and how they feel about themselves, the less likely you want to switch places with them (with exceptions, obviously).
 
When I was younger I had a lot of dreams. As I grew older, and I failed to accomplish almost all of them, I found myself racked with sorrow. I hated my own inability and weakness. I hated that I'd failed. Ultimately, I had to give up on even trying to " succeed", which admittedly falls within my own metric, in order to keep on living. Whether I was average or below average from the start I don't know. The fact of the matter is, I am a failure now. I realize as long as I have time that it's possible to create change, but I'm not sure the struggle is worth it. Thus my question on how to cope with knowledge I am mediocre... Also, is it bad to believe yourself to be mediocre? Not everyone can be outstanding so some people have to be. Do you believe it's objectively possible to deem some people mediocre and others a success? Is there a basic criteria?
Life is kind of a rigged game. Ton of peoples "success" is luck and being at a certain place at a certain time. People like to pretend that it's more than that on social media, so I stopped using it. People aren't as happy and successful as they want others to believe.

Live life at your own pace. Don't feel like you have to do things like get a degree, get married, have kids, buy a house, become a manager, start a business etc. -- by a certain age or even at all! I see others overwork themselves and get burnt out and most of what they accomplished was becoming incredibly stressed out and making whoever they work for richer.

If you get to a point where you can sleep soundly at night, then that's probably the most important personal and private success you can achieve.
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
As mentioned if you too busy trying to work all the time you won’t have time with family or friends. Why waste it pursuing well. Just pursue happiness
 

TheMan

Member
I've technically accomplished my dream (more or less), and I find that I'm probably mediocre compared to most of my colleagues. I just keep my head down and keep chuggin best I can, and I try to find fulfillment in things outside of work. That works some of the time, although admittedly I've purchased a lot of things that I wanted- new house, cool car, ps5- and that need for more, the insecurity, is still there. Next step is probably therapy.
 

Barnabot

Member
I don't need to leave a mark on this world to feel any grasp of satisfaction. You'll ended up hurting yourself or even someone else if you are insistently pursuing something that you may not even need to but you just do that for sake of you doing this because of your own hubris.
 
GTFO. The OP asked for advice about how to deal with mediocrity and you respond with a braggadocious recount of your glory days under the guise that it serves as a frame of reference by which you can speak on mediocrity and its positive attribute.

Oh, please. No one asked about your model girlfriend or how you sniffed coke off a prostitute's butt or how you banged a lot of chicks after shows. This isn't the first time that you've brought up the long line of women you've been with, braggart.
😁

(It seems my line of reasoning didn't resonate with you, my friend)
 
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GAMETA

Banned
Really?
What did your 12 year old self thought you'd achieve and become at your current age?
Batman?

My self hating 12 year old acne riddled computer nerd self would constantly high five me for all the cool stuff I did in my life later on.

Right?

My 12 year old self would be amazed by how far I've come in terms of work and by the fact that I banged some girls... we thought it was impossible.
 

Tesseract

Banned
what else should i be doing w / my time

work keeps me going, many thousands of hours expended and plenty more to go

maybe i need to explore the other side more and start dating again ... ?
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Thought I was on era for a second with this self-pity thread. Lots of feminine energy coming from op.

You're not mediocre and you're not a failure. Life doesn't work in such simple classifications. Also dreams are overrated. Try goals instead.
 

Lupingosei

Banned
I am not, I reached most of my dreams, maybe even too early.

Maybe I am too lazy for what I could achieve, but I wonder if I would be happier as a professor or something like that.
 

Bartski

Gold Member
I had a bit of a career as an electronic musician in the early 2000s.

Had my own project with which I had a bit of success internationally, but the thing my best friend did back then went through the roof with one of the biggest trance/rave hits of that time.
So we went touring all over the globe. I have been playing music in front of 10000s of people in stadiums in north and south america, europe and asia. I was one of the first people playing a Techno liveact on the sugar loaf in Rio de Janeiro.
I lived in Tokyo with my japanese model girlfriend for a few years, DJing in a local club every two weeks.
For a while I have been in airplanes like two to three times per week.
Sniffed cocaine off the butt of a columbian whore in Cali.
Was driven around in those white limousines in the US. One time when we were on the route 66, we watched a porn movie in the car. Nice story to tell.
Fucked lots girls on aftershow parties.
Met a lot of famous musicians. Even some notorious producers from back in the 80ies that were my idols when I was a little boy.
And a lot of other things....

The problem with all of this is if you are a normal person and not a psycho, the people you like will like you less and less because of your success, and you get a lot of bootlickers telling you how great you are that you don't care about instead.
Normal people will start to behave strange around you.
You will always live in fear, that your success won't hold on (hint: for 99,99% of musicians it doesn't).
You will start to feel like an impostor.
This life is so tiresome. You will more and more crave to just sit and home with your girlfriend and watch some boring TV show. That, or you become a drug addict.

I am happy I experienced all that stuff, but I am very happy now going back with just being mediocre again for many years.

So, yeah. There is a lot of protection in mediocrity.
Embrace it.
Same boat pretty much, never made it internationally but lived a life of a local "rockstar" most of my youth... it's a 15 years-long story of turning into a petty egomaniac raging drug addict alcoholic and it's a miracle I'm still alive.

So now over 5 years after quitting, I'm 100% retired, live a super mediocre boring life with a totally mediocre corporate IT job, killed all my social media when going sober, I'm mr nobody, and believe it or not I absolutely love it.

It'll sound horribly cliche but the whole trick is to learn to appreciate small things in life and subtract everything that tries to fuck with it, it's so much better than all the bombast shit you ever thought will make you happy.
 

Blond

Banned
When I was younger I had a lot of dreams. As I grew older, and I failed to accomplish almost all of them, I found myself racked with sorrow. I hated my own inability and weakness. I hated that I'd failed. Ultimately, I had to give up on even trying to " succeed", which admittedly falls within my own metric, in order to keep on living. Whether I was average or below average from the start I don't know. The fact of the matter is, I am a failure now. I realize as long as I have time that it's possible to create change, but I'm not sure the struggle is worth it. Thus my question on how to cope with knowledge I am mediocre... Also, is it bad to believe yourself to be mediocre? Not everyone can be outstanding so some people have to be. Do you believe it's objectively possible to deem some people mediocre and others a success? Is there a basic criteria?

The best advice I can give you even if you personally may not like "What you're good at" is to play to your strengths. It might take a few years to pay off, hell, you might even have to take a pay cut like I did, but once you're "on the path" and you start setting goals for yourself suddenly your outlook will be different.

Sitting around feeling sorry for yourself gets you nowhere even spending a hour a day working on anything be it bettering yourself mentally or your body will make you more satisfied in the long run. Spend a hour a day learning to code or UX Design, in 100 days you've spent 100 hours learning a program language, algorithms, designing interfaces and possibly contributed to an open source project and or other things and you've prepared yourself for a junior dev role making 65-70k, of which there are many and it only gets better from there.

I'm not saying you HAVE to go this route, but I will say that exploring your options than sulking in "Blackpill" non-sense from losers on the internet (and trust me, I know a lot of so called "blackpillers" IRL who aren't shit.) who are of low value to everyone around them isn't the solution. Just saying.
 

Patrick S.

Banned
I had a bit of a career as an electronic musician in the early 2000s.

Had my own project with which I had a bit of success internationally, but the thing my best friend did back then went through the roof with one of the biggest trance/rave hits of that time.
So we went touring all over the globe. I have been playing music in front of 10000s of people in stadiums in north and south america, europe and asia. I was one of the first people playing a Techno liveact on the sugar loaf in Rio de Janeiro.
I lived in Tokyo with my japanese model girlfriend for a few years, DJing in a local club every two weeks.
For a while I have been in airplanes like two to three times per week.
Sniffed cocaine off the butt of a columbian whore in Cali.
Was driven around in those white limousines in the US. One time when we were on the route 66, we watched a porn movie in the car. Nice story to tell.
Fucked lots girls on aftershow parties.
Met a lot of famous musicians. Even some notorious producers from back in the 80ies that were my idols when I was a little boy.
And a lot of other things....

The problem with all of this is if you are a normal person and not a psycho, the people you like will like you less and less because of your success, and you get a lot of bootlickers telling you how great you are that you don't care about instead.
Normal people will start to behave strange around you.
You will always live in fear, that your success won't hold on (hint: for 99,99% of musicians it doesn't).
You will start to feel like an impostor.
This life is so tiresome. You will more and more crave to just sit and home with your girlfriend and watch some boring TV show. That, or you become a drug addict.

I am happy I experienced all that stuff, but I am very happy now going back with just being mediocre again for many years.

So, yeah. There is a lot of protection in mediocrity.
Embrace it.
Are you e-phonk from PlanetCrap?
 

Tesseract

Banned
getting good at stuff keeps me honest, out of the shadows

pushing past mediocrity in one thing leads to another, builds confidence and momentum to better opportunities

i'd love to jetset the world or hop around dive bars all night but it's not very dutiful or productive
 
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Same boat pretty much, never made it internationally but lived a life of a local "rockstar" most of my youth... it's a 15 years-long story of turning into a petty egomaniac raging drug addict alcoholic and it's a miracle I'm still alive.

So now over 5 years after quitting, I'm 100% retired, live a super mediocre boring life with a totally mediocre corporate IT job, killed all my social media when going sober, I'm mr nobody, and believe it or not I absolutely love it.

It'll sound horribly cliche but the whole trick is to learn to appreciate small things in life and subtract everything that tries to fuck with it, it's so much better than all the bombast shit you ever thought will make you happy.
This.
 

Goro Majima

Kitty Genovese Member
I had a bit of a career as an electronic musician in the early 2000s.

Had my own project with which I had a bit of success internationally, but the thing my best friend did back then went through the roof with one of the biggest trance/rave hits of that time.
So we went touring all over the globe. I have been playing music in front of 10000s of people in stadiums in north and south america, europe and asia. I was one of the first people playing a Techno liveact on the sugar loaf in Rio de Janeiro.
I lived in Tokyo with my japanese model girlfriend for a few years, DJing in a local club every two weeks.
For a while I have been in airplanes like two to three times per week.
Sniffed cocaine off the butt of a columbian whore in Cali.
Was driven around in those white limousines in the US. One time when we were on the route 66, we watched a porn movie in the car. Nice story to tell.
Fucked lots girls on aftershow parties.
Met a lot of famous musicians. Even some notorious producers from back in the 80ies that were my idols when I was a little boy.
And a lot of other things....

The problem with all of this is if you are a normal person and not a psycho, the people you like will like you less and less because of your success, and you get a lot of bootlickers telling you how great you are that you don't care about instead.
Normal people will start to behave strange around you.
You will always live in fear, that your success won't hold on (hint: for 99,99% of musicians it doesn't).
You will start to feel like an impostor.
This life is so tiresome. You will more and more crave to just sit and home with your girlfriend and watch some boring TV show. That, or you become a drug addict.

I am happy I experienced all that stuff, but I am very happy now going back with just being mediocre again for many years.

So, yeah. There is a lot of protection in mediocrity.
Embrace it.

Just gonna casually mention my favorite genre and era of early 2000s trance and not even hint at which track it was?
 

CAB_Life

Member
Declare yourself a demi-boy and hop on Twitter. Will get you lots of likes and a false feeling of importance.
 

DESTROYA

Member
It’s all a state of mind, if you think that your mediocre then that’s on you .
Others looking at you might think different but you live to be happy and healthy and if you have those then your on your way to make yourself a better person.
 

Dthomp

Member
Depression isn't a one size fits all glove. It can be something that hits for stretches or bothers you all the time. Honestly, as an old man, you just sound like you are way to far in your own head worrying about nonsense. What's wrong with being mediocre in the grand scheme? Most of us are fucking mediocre or really don't matter in the big picture, that's life. Make the most of each day that you have. Bad breakup? Grieve for whatever you need and seek out a new companion. Some people just need to stay out of their heads with this stuff, you get 1 life to live, don't spend it worrying about nonsense my friend. If you are happy, it really doesn't matter how much you make, how cool your car is, how hot your girl is. Talk to a doctor, or maybe a therapist if you feel that deeply of life regret.
 
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