What Possessed Me

Awww...shucks

I’m feeling a bit bashful about that last post, especially after receiving so many sweet comments and emails from you lovely people. I promise – really I do – that I wasn’t fishing for compliments (nevertheless, I’m terribly grateful for your affectionate responses. I always love hearing from you)! I was mostly interested in the idea of embracing mediocrity as a way to allow myself to try something new. After all, my esteemed colleague from Post-it Notes From Hades reminds me, “Mediocrity is not a sin!”* And it isn’t, especially when you consider how paralyzing perfection can be.

My esteemed colleague also quoted Gilbert and Sullivan in saying, “If everybody’s somebody, then no one’s anybody.” This reminded me of Bill Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, who spoke at my college graduation. As we listened to Mary Robinson drone on for ages (I’m sure she’s a fascinating personality, but I was 21, deeply hung over, and boiling in a plastic convocation robe), my entire graduating class sank deeper and deeper into a coma. Then Bill Weld took the stage and shook things up. I will paraphrase his speech:

“I want to congratulate you all for graduating from this venerable institution.” (Copious back-patting heard throughout the crowd.)

“You’re ranked number one in the country, and for the rest of your life, you can tell everyone you graduated from this glorious place.” (More back-patting and smugness.)

“And that’s a wonderful thing. But you should know something before you go out in the world: NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR DIPLOMA. NO ONE CARES IF YOUR PROFESSOR THINKS YOU’RE BRILLIANT.”

(Gasps. Chairs scraping.)

“As soon as you leave this place, you are no one, just like everyone else. This may be a hard lesson to learn, since everyone’s been telling you since you got here that you are the best and the brightest, but the sooner you learn that YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL, the better. Because you’ll see that the world is full of people who want it – whatever “it” is - more than you do – they are willing to work harder, stick their necks out, risk everything. They are hungry and they will trounce you and your wimpy, self-entitled ways. That is, unless YOU GET OVER IT RIGHT NOW.”

And that was pretty much it. When I think about my time in college, this is really the only thing I learned of any value. That, and the following advice:

“Liquor before beer – never fear. Beer before liquor, never sicker.”

Because you really, really need to know that.



*From How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying


Image from The Library of Congress’s brilliant online photography project, The Commons on Flickr. Via Diana:Muse
(the source of all good things).

Shoot high, aim low

List in hand, I march myself to the shrink with a sense of foreboding. I am not looking forward to this conversation. I don’t want to discuss my positive attributes – I want to talk about how to make something of myself, about how to make changes in my life. About how to stop standing in my own way.

But it’s all related, see. I learn this when I get there and we have to talk about the list. As I rattle off such accolades as “strangely immune to pain” and “good at fixing jumbo stapler,” my mind wanders. I think about the fact that in nine months of seeing this woman, I have never, even seen her wear trousers. I think about her romantic life, her private agonies, and her ability to go through an entire day without snagging her stockings.

She is sharp and impressive, making connections, asking astute questions, tying things together in a way that reminds me, once again, that therapy is as much an intellectual exercise as an emotional one.

Suddenly, I am a puddle, tearing through her box of tissues at an alarming rate.

I’m stuck, I say. I want to become unstuck, but I don’t know how.

"I have a concrete suggestion for you," she says.

What is it?

“Contemplate mediocrity.”

That sounds like the name of an indie rock band from Omaha.

She ignores me. “If the thought of mediocrity is paralyzing you, then think about allowing yourself to be utterly mediocre at something.”

So I’m supposed to lower my standards? That doesn’t sound particularly therapeutic.

“How will you try anything new if you expect yourself to be the best at everything you do?”

This is a good point. I don’t know the answer to this question.

I’ve been dabbling in mediocrity for some time now, so perhaps it won’t be much of a job to master it.

“Good. Be mediocre!”

I will! Lackluster, even!

“Completely unremarkable!”

Totally unexceptional!

“Great. See you next week.”

And there endeth the strangest therapy session known to man.


Illustration by Cecilia Carlstedt. See more of her work here. Via the very wonderful Spiralbound.

Love me, love my list

Realizing that I have my shrink appointment today, I finally got down to business and compiled the list. As you might imagine, thinking up reasons why one likes oneself is an excruciating exercise, but I think I finally have something that will make my therapist understand how much progress I've made since last week.

In my usual fashion, I put things off until the last possible moment, and scribbled some ideas on a small scrap of paper, first on the subway, then later in a cab, and finally, at my desk at work (which accounts for the different pens. I had to borrow one from the taxi driver.)

Everything was going really well until one of my colleagues saw "Nice clavicles" written in red and stopped mid-sentence.

"Are you writing someone a love letter?" he asked. This would be a natural assumption, since people have complimented each other's clavicles in letters throughout the ages.

"Yes," I said. "This cubicle puts me in the mood for loooooove. It must be all the beige."

"Who is the letter for?" he asked. Nosy bastard.

"It's a letter to myself. Well, not a letter, but a list." I said, sounding startlingly confident and breezy.

"..."

I could see the word "loser" bouncing across the inside of his brain. Did I care? Apparently not.

"What else have you got?" he asked, peering over my list, which I was shielding protectively.

I let him read it. After taking it in, he thought for a moment.

"You should put 'Good at fixing jumbo stapler' on your list. No one here knows how to use that thing besides you."

"Thank you," I said gravely. "I will definitely add that to my list."