Fear of Mediocrity

The day we are born, we don’t know what we want to make of our lives. As we live, we learn about life, we start dreaming and we start understanding our passion and interests. Every kid including me wants to do something extraordinary with their lives. As a kid I always wanted to be a cricketer and I am pretty sure many others like me shared the same dream. The death of this dream was obvious, parents found it impractical, they wanted me to focus on important things like studying and make a scholar out of me. They knew I was not matured enough to take this decision, and so they were right in forcing their decision on me. I always wanted to know is there an age for dreams, is it a necessary condition for us to mature in order to follow our dreams.  

Is this the place where dreams go to die? Would my life have been extraordinary if I had taken the risk of becoming a cricketer or would I have ended in a pure failure? The fear I felt then and even today is the same. The fear of mediocrity. The fear which stops me from making my life extraordinary. The fear stops me from taking risk and chasing my real dreams, something which I feel for. The fear is different from other fear because living with this fear is quite easy and straight forward. We can pass our entire lives without even noticing that we possess this fear. Even I can live with it, and have a mediocre life, but the choice is do I want to live a mediocre life? Do you want to live a mediocre life if you have an option to make it extraordinary?

Maturity comes with time, but dreams don’t. Dreams just knocks on your door, challenges you with life, gives you a choice, and it’s up to you whether to buy it or save it for later. Society, family, failures, education all pull us down and want us to live a normal mediocre life. It has been said before, people couldn’t make their lives extraordinary and they want you not even to try to make it extraordinary. Family always wants us to have a safe and settled life, they have had their risks and troubles, and so they want us not to go through that path. My point is why shouldn’t we do so? Why shouldn’t we risk our lives for something we feel important, it doesn’t matter what anyone else feels for it, not even parents. Why can’t we chase our dream, fail in it and then chase another one? We can right, we can even then decide to live a mediocre life. We will always have the choice to live a mediocre life, simple family, a simple flat, child’s education and such material stuff.  So why not give a chance to the possibility of extraordinary lives?

I had another dream, it was get into an IIT. I am mentioning another instance from my life because this is different. I was given permission and support from my parents to follow it and chase it to the best of my abilities. They feared all along the 2 years that what will my kid do, but that’s a different thing. This dream was accepted because, it was on my path to learning and education, it was feasible, it was honored and most important it was related to studies. Can you look at this acceptance issue, why can’t all dreams be equally accepted? What if I had told them I wanted to drop out of school and write books at the age of 16? I don’t think that was ever a choice, and I was matured enough to understand what they feel and how society works.

So I was chasing my dream, and it crashed in a similar manner like all other dreams. I may have wanted to give it a second try, but parents and society wanted me to go with the last feasible option and even I was convinced that it’s okay to forget the dream and live on. I just want to prove my point that this is the place where fear of mediocrity comes up. It comes within our mind, we start thinking that we are not good enough, may be this was not meant for us, or maybe I am supposed to live a simple life and don’t deserve to be in an IIT. Eventually it was my decision to compromise with my dream, but was my decision affected by the external factors? Wasn’t another try for my dream worth it, what would have happened if I would have failed again? Would that be the place where dreams go to die? Or will this be the place where dreams go to die?

Now let’s come to the present. The best part of the present is my friends, they feel like me and realize that such a fear exists even in them. A lot of the college students’ dreams go to die and all live with the aim of completing college or getting a job after college. This is a result of the education system which kills the skills and confidence of the students. Having a good group of friends is a bliss, and I was blessed. They bring you over depression by giving more depression, who imagine the dream you dreamed and inspire you to follow, who irritate you till you leave the room, who doesn’t let you sleep when you are tired, who come out of the exams and say “lag gai yaar” and who cry with you after every time you watch 3 idiots.  It is because of them that I haven’t left dreaming. Now we have a dream which we have seen together, to have something of our own, I mean to have a startup where we all work together. This startup thing is something we want in order to make our life extraordinary. Now let’s look at the context, me as well as my friends are placed in good companies having a great pay for an undergrad. After 2 years we plan to leave our jobs, and come together and live our dream. Company people are assholes and for us not to leave them, they offer a higher pay at exact time when we plan to leave. So this is where fear comes in. It’s easy and comfortable to live a simple mediocre settled life, and what’s difficult is to leave such comfort and live to make our life extraordinary. The risk factor is the key, is it worth taking the risk? As we can end up in complete failure and we will not even have decent jobs then. So will it be easy to overcome the fear of mediocrity and try to make our lives extraordinary? We have so far decided we will do so, give it a try at least, as well all know, being in MNC’s, making money, making company move forward will continue forever, but we will not have the zeal to chase our dreams as the time moves forward……

What will happen if we fail in chasing the dream, nothing, we can try again, we can even go for another dream, and we can get back to mediocrity even, so why not give it a try and have a regret less for our deathbed?   

So live to make your lives extraordinary, you will always have the option of mediocrity open for you. Chasing your dreams is the way to go………Conquer your fear of mediocrity.