I’m ashamed to say it’s been a while since my last blog post. I had intended to complete one a month, which seemed doable in the high energy time that is January and new-year goal setting. Alas life has gotten in the way, and now it’s nearly May, and I have yet to see my ideas come to fruition. There have been many drafts, but nothing felt good enough. I had this niggling feeling that the piece had to be perfect, or I didn’t know enough about a particular subject to feel confident in what I was putting out into the world. However, perfection is unattainable and there is value in the mundane, maybe even a mediocre blog post.
So, what have I been doing all this time, when I haven’t been diligently at my desk, fingers to keyboard. Well, working for one. Sacrificing 8 hours a day, 5 days a week has been pretty time consuming, but I guess I can’t complain about that too much as everyone has time restraining responsibilities and it is important to be thankful for them. Second, I have been doing a lot of activism, campaigning for the green party, campaigning to make London more plant-based and attending Pro-Palestine protests and such. All this is so life affirming and the communities I’ve been able to create with people who have aligned morals and genuinely want to make the world a better place, makes me feel like everything is a bit brighter than what we’re being subjected to by the current media storm since January (I originally wanted to do a blog post all about this- US politics and power- but then I couldn’t keep up with all the developments, maybe I still will though).
During this time, I was also training for the Brighton Marathon which I completed on the 6th of April, raising over £1000 for Medical Aid for Palestinians. I can genuinely say that this was one of the most life-affirming experiences of my existence and the support and love I received from everyone in my community was truly humbling. On the day I completed 5 hours, 41 minutes of the most breath-taking running (physically and metaphorically 😅). I saw my family and friends at least 5 times (because they followed me around the course- the stalkers 😆) and was cheered on by the other groups including some Pro-Palestine ones which was so heartening. This race was the complete opposite to my half marathon, that I completed a year before, which finished with me nearly quitting long distance running altogether. Something that I truly love. I was close to not continuing because I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be. I strived to be better than others and comparing myself and my time to theirs made me fall into a dark place of self-loathing and dread the very thing that had helped me through some of the worst periods of my life. At multiple points through my running journey, it was my pursuit of perfection and comparison with others that led me to break my body in many different ways, which when you really think about it is quite messed up. Yet, there are so many stories of runners who have hurt themselves by letting the perfectionism in and not listening to their body when rest or restraint from more strenuous exercise was required. Why is this and competition so normalised? I guess everyone wants to be the best, but why? When it causes more pain than if just merely the choice to go on a run was celebrated. I nearly didn’t pursue this dream because of perfectionism or the belief I wouldn’t be able to, when the reality was that on the day, I completed it and enjoyed every second.
I’ve wanted to write something on the merits of mediocrity for some time. So often, especially with the influence of perfectionism on social media, it is hard to take action and do something that you enjoy because you don’t think you are good enough. However, I would argue that mediocrity is being resurrected. In a time when the world needs us to try, to fight for it like our lives depend on it, because they do, mediocrity in that fight is paramount. What you do does not need to be perfect, but at least do something. Preferably that thing that’s in the back of your mind that you think, oh I could never do that. Do it 😉
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