accepting mediocrity - baby steps

i am trying to learn that it is okay to not be everything all at once, or even at all.

Art by Michael Lipsey

I want to spill over the sides of where I am. I want to burst at the seams in hopes of spreading myself as far and wise as possible to tick every box. To meet all the requirements. To have every skill, every achievement, everything that could possibly be in reach. How does anyone know what they want to do - and how do I get to that point? Ideas, thoughts, feelings fill me to the brim, threatening to pour out of my ears and my nose and my eyes and my mouth if I don’t get moving. If I remain stationary, it’ll all catch up to me and I’ll drown in all the things I haven’t done and all the things I’ll never see.

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Halfway through the year and it is (maybe) finally time to do something about my writing. For the longest time, I’ve stressed to myself over and over again how badly I want to write. I string words and phrases together in my head all the time with the intention of putting pen to paper - or fingertips to keyboard - in the future. My brain puts together paragraph after paragraph, merging ideas and anecdotes and concepts, but they never make it out of the brain-void.

I’d love to be able to write like Dolly Alderton or Samantha Irby. Writing about your softest, wildest, most intelligent and most stupid thoughts for people to consume and store in their soft, wild, intelligent, stupid brains must feel so liberating yet so vulnerable. There is nothing quite like finding yourself or the people you hold close to you within the lines of comfort writers. I’d love to properly give it a go.

There are many things I’d like to give a go, actually. Sticking to a hobby feels impossible sometimes, especially when I have to learn or pick up a new skill, put in the effort. The idea that I can’t just instantly know how to do something is terrifying to me. Of course, I know that it is only human to learn and develop the knowledge to produce something but how on earth does one obtain the patience? How do you be okay with the thought that for a long while, you might be quite rubbish at something? It makes me feel like a failure, and that is something that I have never really managed to figure out how to combat due to this stupid perfectionist mindset of mine where it is near impossible to be anything other than hard on myself.

In an ideal world, I put all my half-efforts together to actually do something with my life. I am constantly aware that time is constantly passing and I am constantly missing chances to progress in this world where everything is constantly moving and changing. I shouldn’t, but I feel envious of people my age who are successful - young bloggers who have a group of readers who tune in, musicians who tour every night, photographers because what am I even doing with that degree of mine? Sometimes it feels like I don’t know how to accept and work with what I’ve got. In my head and in my heart, I know that I don’t actually need or want any of this stuff - I am privileged to have what I have and to live the life that I currently do, but acceptance is an odd little thing.

Despite my complete lack of any musical talent (shoutout to my failed piano and ukulele attempts) I have this weird, out of reach ‘wish’ (goal? idea?) that I could write some songs, practice them, then release a short album or EP of songs recorded in one take. In this little fantasy, I collaborate with myself and all of my failed or disregarded hobbies and I look back and feel proud of my ‘success’. My silly self-recorded music and my self-shot, self-directed album cover and my amazing music videos and my great tour outfits, etcetera, etcetera.

Then obviously, I wake up from this weird little fantasy and I complete a course online that’ll help me get a ‘real people’ job. And the longer I do this course, the more I begin to wonder if I actually want this or if I just want something to pass the time because everything I apparently want to do feels too far out of reach. I am only 23, but I feel like I am running out of time. I shouldn’t feel like this, nobody is time-checking me, following me around like a devil on my shoulder armed with a stopwatch and a notepad to track my slacking progress.

I don’t know - maybe one day I’ll accept and understand that everybody has phases and that not everybody gets to be good at everything and tick off all their fantasy boxes. At least I’ve made some changes already this year which is progress from my first post of 2023. All progress is good progress, regardless of how slow, even if it is baby steps or full on leaps, and I will eventually learn that it is absolutely fine.