Mediocrity is freedom

I would get literally sick before each high school track race. Not to the point where I was actually throwing up, but I would be warming up for the mile, just lightly jogging around the track when I would get a bout of the dry heaves.

It wasn't the idea of losing so much; I had come to terms with that. It was that I would be losing in such a public manner, in front of everybody. It really bothered me that my failure was such a public spectacle.

Of course, that stress only made it worse. I was a classic choker on the track. Cross country wasn't so bad, because we'd run most of the race in the woods, away from everybody. My humiliation would be private.

Funny thing happened, though. In cross country I would run a 5-k race at my track mile pace. If I could lose in private, it didn't bother me. And then I didn't lose so much, either.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The fact that I cared how I performed caused me to get stressed out and tripped me up. When I didn't care so much, I relaxed and ran better. This only leads me to conclude that not caring leads to better performance.

This is why I am embracing mediocrity. It allows for the freedom of not caring. I've got to be careful here, though. Not caring could lead to better performance. Better performance leads to high expectations. High expectations leads to stress, and well, I'm back at the starting line once again, upchucking. (Good core workout, though. Builds strong abdominals. But that's not the goal here.)

That's why the key to mediocrity is to embrace it fully and not to think about any results whatsoever.