Feb 09 2009
Settling for mediocrity
Sometimes I look at my life as big long list of failure after failure. Others would look at it as a panoply of success after success. When I’m having a good day that funnels towards a bad one, I realize that though there are relative successes, what I’ve become is one thing- mediocre. Does everyone have greatness inside of them? Is there an inner Oprah in everyone?
This was an interesting article on conditioning and mediocrity— so I guess I’ve been adequate, and on occasion, more than adequate. Not sure how I feel about that. I was raised to always want to be superlative. Somehow adequate just doesn’t feel good enough…
Conditioning and mediocrity - are fears limiting our creative potential?
In his book Totally Fulfilled, Dean Graziosi notes “We all have limiting beliefs inside us whether we know it or not, and they may be the main reason some of us can’t get to the next level in life… Chances are, without realizing it, you’ve been conditioned for mediocrity.”
A recent highly circulated and critiqued condolence letter by Lindsay Lohan to the family of Robert Altman [who directed her and many other actors in the film “A Prairie Home Companion”] ended with, apparently, what was meant to be a reference to a quote of Altman: “Be Adequite” [as she misspelled it.]
According to a news story [St. Paul Pioneer Press July 20, 2005] about the making of “A Prairie Home Companion” director Robert Altman used the phrase “That was adequate” to indicate he had shot enough takes of a scene. One of the stars of the film, Virginia Madsen, said when he tells an actor their performance is “more than adequate, that means it’s good.”
Garrison Keillor further explained, “It’s that Midwestern reticence,” noting that Altman grew up in Kansas City, Mo. “The distrust of superlatives is rather strong.”
Using that sort of muting of “excessive” enthusiasm for comic effect is one of the pleasures of Keillor’s radio show - but it may also be another form of conditioning toward suppression of passions which can energize our talents.
Columbia Business School Professor Srikumar Rao, in his book Are You Ready to Succeed?, details some of the forms of conditioning we can be subjected to that limit us.
He asks, “Are you beset by fears? Are you terrified of spiders or snakes or one-eyed albino pirates? Do dark spaces or soaring heights make your palms sweat? Or does the thought of going to parties, giving speeches, making presentations, or speaking up for something you believe in that is unpopular scare you silly?
“Are you numbed by the specter of being stuck in the same dreary career and never achieving the potential you know you have? I regularly hear about all these and many, many more.
“But where did you pick this up? These fears are all a result of your conditioning… from your parents and teachers and role models.. the media that surrounds you.
“Marketers call it cultural conditioning - your tendency to consume products and think in ways that conform to the broader society that you are a part of. This conditioning not only restricts you, it also prevents you from exploring pathways that could lead you to freedom. That is why you feel boxed in and enervated.”
[The photo, by the way, is from the article Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, by Jeffrey Kluger, Time Magazine Nov. 17, 2002 — about highly sensitive people. A whole other topic, but maybe not so unrelated.]
