Permission to be Mediocre

“What was his reason for not turning up today?” Jigneshbhai asked Swami as we stepped into our café after a game of badminton last weekend. One of Swami’s office mates had promised to join us a few weeks back.

“Well, he says he still needs to get better. He is practising at home. He is still not where he wants to be,” Swami replied after ordering our usual coffee and muffins.

“How will he get where he wants to be if he isn’t there where he needs to be?” Jigneshbhai asked and broke alone into a guffaw. Swami and I didn’t quite get the joke. “I meant how will he get better if he doesn’t get on to the court?” Jigneshbhai explained seeing our puzzled faces.

Swami took a sip of the coffee and replied, “Well, he is a perfectionist. Even at work, he takes a long time to finish his projects and presentations. He takes hours to write emails.”

Jigneshbhai broke into a smile again. “Well, that’s fine. But this is not work. This is play,” he explained. “Why doesn’t he get out of his own way and let himself play?”

Swami and I pondered over what Jigneshbhai had said. Honestly, I didn’t find anything odd with someone not turning up if he thinks he is not good enough to play. But Jigneshbhai had other ideas.

“Nothing starts without being mediocre first,” he started. “If you are not willing to be mediocre, you will never start anything,” he added.

“Well, I am not sure of that,” Swami said. “He doesn’t want to embarrass himself, I guess.”

“That’s the problem. We refuse to give ourselves permission to be mediocre. We worry about being judged,” he said. “When the reality is nobody is looking,” he added with a smile.

Swami and I looked at each other. Swami wasn’t fully convinced though he got the sway of what our wise friend said.

“But he wants everything to be perfect before taking a shot at it,” Swami said. “Last week he told me he was working on his backhand. This week, he said the footwork was a bit off. The week before he said the weather was a bit cold. Maybe he didn’t want to risk injury,” he added.

Jigneshbhai raised his eyebrows in a frown, shook his head and rolled his eyes. He was no badminton expert. In fact, none of us were anything but weekend amateurs. But though he didn’t know badminton, he had an uncanny understanding of people.

Then with a smile, he said, “Nothing wrong with chasing perfection. Pursuit of perfection is a worthy goal, but often masked is the fear of being judged. Someone wise said that perfect is the enemy of good enough.”

Swami and I stared at each other again. This time we seemed to be aligned with the same thoughts. We don’t let ourselves be messy. We don’t let ourselves play. We don’t let ourselves start anything where we see a chance of failure.

When we give ourselves permission to be mediocre, we try new things without worrying about the outcome. We let ourselves play with trial and error. We don’t get disappointed by mediocre results. We expect them. We are happy with them. Only we can give ourselves that permission. We don’t need it from anyone.

“When we allow ourselves to be mediocre, if anything turns out to be better than that, it becomes wonderful,” Jigneshbhai said, taking an imperfect bite into the only perfect thing we had seen – the double chocolate muffin at our café.

While Jigneshbhai enjoyed his perfect muffin, Swami and I wondered whether mediocre was really ok. Mediocre didn’t sound like an aspirational destination. I could almost sense Swami thinking how he could tell someone with pride that he was mediocre at badminton. But the truth was that all of us were mediocre, especially when we saw others play. But then I felt, at least we played while his colleague stayed at home.

It was when we were engrossed in these thoughts that the wealthy old man walked across from the adjoining table to ours. He sat next to Swami and me in silence for a few moments.

He then tapped me and Swami on the shoulder and said, “A mediocre outcome on anything that is actually done is better than a perfect outcome that is only in your imagination.”

He then took a shuttle and a racquet from Swami’s kit. He stepped out and tried to serve with all the strength in his old shoulders. The shuttle went high up in the air without moving forward and landed two feet behind him. Swami and I looked at Jigneshbhai who was smiling. He quickly moved a few steps with all his bulk, picked up the shuttle and tried to smash it, only to miss it.

With a broad grin, the wealthy old man clapped and added, “Mediocre is a happy place to be. If only we give ourselves the permission to be mediocre.”

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