Finding joy in mediocrity
If I were to make a list of the bravest people I’ve known in my life, several of my former students would be on it. Adult beginners, they came to the keyboard with no previous introduction to the piano and no natural physical or musical aptitude for playing. They struggled for every milestone. Where other adult learners with more ability grasped movements and concepts effortlessly, they tirelessly mapped out every single motion their hands made. Their scores became multi-colored roadmaps of their struggles as they worked for each transition, however small.
I envied those students the joy they found in mastering small steps of something they had to struggle so hard to learn. I also envied them their bravery. I was a cautious child who learned young that I felt safer avoiding things I couldn’t do well, and focusing instead on those things that came easily to me. This philosophy shaped my life until July 2009 when I wandered into my first yoga class and loved it so much that I’ve been practicing yoga ever since.
Sadly, despite my dedication to it, I have no natural aptitude for yoga. For all the classes and coaching and dedicated home practicing, I’ll never master advanced asanas, and no one has ever (or will ever) suggested that I train to be a yoga teacher. Rather than being discouraged about this, I feel a giddy sense of freedom—a joy that came from accepting that I’ll never be anything other than mediocre so I can relax and just enjoy the process of becoming more adept at yoga, one tiny, hard-won step at a time.
Too many times, our fear of mediocrity keeps us from trying things we may find exhilarating, even if we don’t excel at them. Sometimes this happens because we’ve been trained to strive to be the best at everything we do. Other times we fear the judgment of others. Both are real fears. Competition propels our culture, and others sometimes do suggest that we stop trying to do things for which we have no natural ability. There may be validity to both, but it ignores other important considerations, namely joy.
What if we stopped worrying about whether or not we’re good at something and focused instead on how much joy it brings us to do it? What if we gave ourselves permission to go back to those heady childhood days when every song we made up on the piano and every finger-painted picture was perfect in our own eyes? What if we stopped worrying about levels, and abilities, and expectations, and did what we loved for the thrill of doing it?
My adult piano students figured this out. They approached each piece with the wonder of children. They worked methodically and (at times) mechanically. They’d discovered the secret I learned when I took up yoga—namely that any accomplishment, however small, is accompanied by a thrill of mastery that can’t be found in doing things we’re naturally good at. Perhaps that’s because when we have to work so hard to learn anything, the work itself becomes the reason we do it.
Do you love playing the piano but fear you’ll never be any good at it? I say, so what? If it brings you joy to go to the piano each day, does it matter if you’re a gifted musician? Here’s what I know from my own experience with yoga: do what you love even if you’re rubbish at it. Let yourself be awkward. Accept your personal limits and find childlike joy in the striving. Mastery—if and when it comes—will be twice as sweet for you than for those for whom that particular milestone was achieved effortlessly. In the meantime, you’ll be having fun and isn’t that the whole point?
Photo by Ben White, courtesy of UpSplash