Mediocrity…sometimes I feel that this word defines my life. Not because I consciously decide that I want to be average/ordinary/so-so/(insert your own adjective here), but I think sometimes I allow fear (of failure) to enable me to stay where I am at, doing just enough to get by, not excelling at anything.

People would describe me as a person who “strives for excellence,” but when they say that I want to scoff and I think, “If you only knew.” I am not certain that it’s fear that tries to get its vise-like grip on me or if it’s laziness or a combination of both. I can look back at countless ideas, dreams, goals, projects that are half-finished, finished sloppily or abandoned because when it got to be too difficult or uncomfortable, I would jettison it so the heavy cargo wouldn’t slow down my little ship that’s just getting by.

In junior high, it was the novel I was writing. In college, I sailed through, getting my BA in 3 years because school was burdensome. I left classroom teaching after it got too hard. I have numerous unfinished journals and scrapbooks stored up in boxes. I wrote a children’s book once and when trying to publish it became too hard, it got put in a drawer and forgotten. Even my handwriting, which can start out neat, turns into a sloppy, illegible, lazy glob of ink.

I think I finally recognized this in myself. I can be good at lots of things, but I know I WANT to be GREAT. I want to be a GREAT mother, a GREAT wife, and a GREAT Photographer. Mediocrity is not an option anymore.