I am the product of excellent schooling during
an era when white South Africans were uniquely privileged, so it’s hardly
surprising that I know some very ambitious and successful people. What’s
surprising is that a few of us are not particularly ambitious, nor are we
successful in the conventional sense of the word. What’s more, in the fifteen
years that I’ve lived my life as an itinerant English teacher, I’ve met a lot of
other unambitious folks, and they are a breath of fresh air.
It’s only human for us evaluate our lives through
a critical lens from time to time, and I suspect that many of us feel like we
are falling short of some kind of ideal. That’s because now more than ever the
media and popular culture are peddling the dogma that we must wring the very
last drop of effort out of our lives to ensure that we are the best that we can
possibly be. Mere happiness is no longer sufficient; only excellence will
suffice.
If that obese 65-year-old woman with one
leg can do it, then you had better get off your arse and run a marathon too. If
all it takes is hard work, why haven’t you learnt to brew your own beer from
raw ingredients, or write your own computer program? Basically the implication
is; why are you content with your mediocre life? It may not be that explicit,
but the ‘Just do it, Impossible is nothing’ mantra is telling you that the only
reason you don’t have a Ferrari in the garage, and six-pack abs is lack of
effort. So, by extension, you should feel guilty about it.
By the bizarre standards of our
hyper-ambitious age, you should feel guilty about not working overtime, not
losing sleep, not sweating blood to achieve ‘exceptional’ goals. You should
feel guilty about being merely content. Well, I’m here to tell you that that’s
bullshit. What exactly is this ephemeral ‘excellence’ that we’re supposed to be
aiming for? How is it better than contentment? Surely the ultimate goal of all
our effort is just happiness.
Survival is good enough
The great lie of advertising is that you
need more stuff to be happy, and thanks to an onslaught of likeminded media,
even some as benign as TED talks, we’re all infected by the idea that if we can
just reach that goal of (fill in the blank), then we’ll be happy. But of
course, this is nonsense. Why peg your happiness on some future state when you
can be happy in the present? All you have to do is appreciate what you have.
Appreciation v Progress
I’m
not saying that goals are pointless, but I do suspect that our grandparents’
generation was happier in many ways because they knew how to be content. They
knew when they had enough stuff, and they appreciated the simple pleasure of
spending time with family and friends, or just being alone, doing nothing in
particular. To those of you who are happy with your lot in life, and are
content to keep it that way, I think you have achieved the goal that many
ambitious souls are longing for. To the
contented mediocre, I salute you!
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