To reluctantly accept my mediocrity?

[AgentZigzag]

When I was younger (not that long ago, I'm only 39 ) I always thought I had a shot at being noteworthy in something or other, that perhaps I'd make a difference or a contribution to something significant.

But the last couple of years, it's dawned on me that when I die I'll have just lived an ordinary life and not be remembered for anything other then my mediocrity.

I'm not able to work in paid employment, but have 'educated' myself over the years (I'm a third of the way through a masters degree) and perhaps that has something to do with it, I know I'll never be able to use my qualifications and that grates on me.

It's not that I don't count my gorgeous DDs or chuffing lovely DH as unimportant, and I've been happy, content and secure for the last 10 years I've been married, but I thought I might have done something bigger outside my domestic bubble.

Or should I just count my chickens (and I am a 'my glass is half full' kind of person) and be glad I've got to a place where I'm comfortable?

Zig, I was amazed when I clicked on this thread and found the OP was you - you're so clearly bright and sensible and wise, you're in no way mediocre. If I think that and only know you from here, I don't think anyone in your RL will think you're mediocre either.

Is it possible you're getting bogged down in the immediate situation?

It strikes me that you're doing a Masters but still make the point that you're not working. But lots of people don't work when they are doing a Masters anyway - so it comes across as overly apologetic to me. You're doing hard work; why feel mediocre about it?

That's very kind of you to say those nice things LRD

I can only think you see that because by using text, my posts are very, very tightly controlled

I can learn and get qualifications all I like though, but they don't translate into anything tangible because of not being able to interact with a wider world.

If I had to choose my dream job, I think I'd like to be a totally offensive, eccentric but successful academic

Which career website should I start looking for that one on??

Well, when you find that job, let me know and I'll apply too!

I don't see why you couldn't write and publish even if you only did a small amount, and without being employed? You'd get far more rejections for articles and papers than an employed person, but it's not impossible to publish work you've written in isolation.

Of course, you might not want to, but it is doable and you can't be so very cut off from the wider world if you are already getting through the Masters.

(Of course, I may be focusing on the wrong thing here as I am happily antisocial and don't mind the lack of people-contact, but still ...)

I think Judith Rich Harris, author of The Nurture Assumption, did a lot of work alone, at home, when she was virtually bedbound by a chronic illness - she managed to get published, and possibly because she was detached from other academics in her field, she had greater freedom to come up with ideas that went against the mainstream. Certainly eccentric and successful, and I think a lot of other psychologists found her views offensive. Possible model for you there?

Do you think it's 'cos you are 39? I am too and turn 40 in April. I think it's making me take stock of my life ie that I'm half way through and still haven't really found my niche.

Mary Wesley's first novel for adults was published when she was 71. She went on to write nine more so don't write yourself off at 39!

I think YABU. If you're asking the question then you feel you have potential for more than mediocrity.

I am 38 and am getting closer and closer to something biggish...bigger than most people manage.

I think you need to dedicate your 40s to the pursuit of excellence.

40's not what it was!

No advice but sympathy.

My nickname should have been ICouldaBeenaContender

Actually, I do have some advice. If you have never seen the film "Amadeus" . . . don't see it, eh.

I think George Eliot nails it:

'the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as thy might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.'

You might not be eminent or famous but as a result of your life other people have been happier and the world has been better and kindlier and more humane and generally less awful.

AgentZZ you are experiencing the classic mid-life crisis. It will pass, do not make any life changing decisions whilst unbalanced though. Also you may be low on hormones so get that checked out, pre-menopause sort of thing.

We all have little lives on the whole and it doesn't matter a hill of beans. You are the important person in the lives of your DH, DC, family & friends and that is the important thing in this life. The other stuff is ephemeral.

Hope you perk up soon.

Old Ma x

Sleeping, are you a Wesley fan too? I read the biography about her struggling and struggling - then writing at least a novel a year and publishing more after 70 than some authors do in a lifetime - very inspirational.

Come and join us on this thread

Are you me???? For years I was content with my 'lot'. But then I woke up one day, emerging from a crisis to be honest and then for the first time my mediocrity hit me between the two eyes. It's bothered me since then. I try to 'get on' but it's so hard. You can't just demand a well-paid job. Also, even though I am confident and sociable, lately I feel I mgiht be invisible to other people, or left off invitation lists because I'm not a big enough player or something like that.... That last bit might be fact or paranoia. Paranoia based on a bit of fact?

ps...

wow I notice you're all 38, 39 ish.

In the run up to my fortieth I was ok because I had this idea that everything was going to fit in to place when I was forty.. But in the months after I turned forty I started navel-gazing and the conclusion I reached was exactly the same as my OP's. do I accept my mediocrity? Or do I try to change? Can I change?

I turned 40 a couple of years ago and periodically wrestle with this as well. I used to be (sort of) a high-flier, though never personally that ambitious in terms of climbing the career ladder. The career was slightly derailed by having children, but I was gradually getting back on track when DH died and my life was turned completely upside down and inside out. I was 38 then, and had to take the decision to prioritise the DCs, so moved where I thought it would be best for them, but not easy to get back to my normal kind of work. I have various things I want to do, but haven't really been making much progress - too much of general life to deal with for the past few years, I think.

Most of the time it's fine, and I see that I'm not that old, and I will have more time to do things as the DCs get older and more independent - but then I turn on the TV or open a newspaper, and see yet another person I was at school or university with, or used to work with, who has just published another book, or is on the Booker prize committee, or in the cabinet, or editing a national newspaper, or having their own TV series.... And it does make me feel a bit small. But then I wonder how their lives are, and what they have had to do to get where they are, and I'm not at all sure I would want to be where they are now.

But then I also have to admit that if I really, really wanted to do some of the things I tell myself I want to achieve, I could start now and just find a way.

I also have a sneaking suspicion I belong on bumperlicious' procrastinators' thread....

it doesnt help when your just-post teenage children think and repeatedly say that you are a derisory crock of shit.

or maybe I am hwat's the word? kidnapping a thread (something like that anyway).

this may be extreme (though not as extreme as you'd think) but tbh domesticity makes you feel totally invisible anyway. there was a woman on the radio recently who had a major midlife crisis and a breakdown actually and, kids flown, bought a gypsy caravan and travelled around the country for a few years in it. she had a wonderful time and people were fantastic to her. even Eddie Izzard doing that marathon thing - a marathon a day - with hardly any preparation, which was completely irresonsible, was an inspiration to me re you don't have to be perfect and get it all right to do something - you can just blunder along and generally fling yourself at something, it doesn't have to be perfect.

I feel the same and am the same age as you OP. When I was younger I was full of potential and dreams. Now I'm just chugging along, doing fine in a job that is helpful to society, but it's not enough for me.

I don't want to chug along like this until I retire!

I always think of a man I knew, in his 80s, went to the gym three times a week, regularly had young music students over for lunch (he was a brilliant cook) and was really inspiring and alive, if you know what I mean. He probably doesn't realise the impact he had on me.

Maybe there's no "more amazing" or "less amazing", but just different

You've all been so nice, and I was braced for a flaming for being so self indungent.

I'm happy in my anti social bubble too LRD, much happier than when I thought I should have contact with other people. And you're right on track thanks, I might have a look at writing articles, it's not going to hurt is it.

I think you might have something there OldMumsy Although I'm not that bothered about the big 4 0 (it gives me an excuse not to be bothered about looking older ).

Not like my poor closest friend who's a couple of months younger than me, the panic and dread is palpable when she mentions it.

If it's a problem to you valium then that's the time to probably make a change? If you think of all the different phases you've had in your life so far, you're not the same person you were when you were 20, so why would you stop changing now?

I was going to mention Mary Wesley too who was over 70 when she wrote her first book and plenty of women haev a golden age in their 50s when their children are gone and they can achieve if indeed that's what they want.

For all the stuff I probably have palpably achieved, for me what counts is loving the 5 children and being happy and healthy, that is really all that matters at all. Achieving internal contentment is the biggest thing and I can say that despite writing 30 books and my various business interests, buying an island etc etc so I'm not without my own achievements in my 40s. I do though think if you want to "achieve" most women can. You just haev to work very hard at whatever it is and persist. Most of us who achieved haev a massive heap of failures behind us but you just dust yourself down after each one and keep trying on and on and on if you're that way inclined.

hang on a minute xenia - are you saying you have written 30 books, got various businesses, bought an island etc etc.?

well my big aim this week is to finally hoover under the sofa under the window by pulling it out. and sort out the cupboard under the microwave to move my baking stuff to the cupboard under the boiler. which will give me more space for saucepans in the cupboard under the microwave. and maybe get one of them saucepan lid holders so my saucepan lids are in order.

Indeed I did but I was trying to emphasise that what matters more (and I'm not pretending this) is internal contentment, relationships to those whom we love and physical and mental health.

And I only mentioned the other stuff to encourage the others, to say lots of women do choose to do stuff like I've done and it's very possible to work full time have a large family and "achieve" a lot if you're that way inclined.

(etc etc?!?! wtf)

Yep, know how you feel, my friend!!

I was a sort of female "Billy Elliot" in that at age ten I got a scholarship to attend ballet school in London. The same school, I should add, as Darcey Bussell went to. Great things were expected of me but, at age 20, I was involved in an incident which meant I didn't leave the house for a long long time.

I never went back to it.

That's not to say I'd have been the next Darcey but, certainly, I should have been ....well, just.....more.

But, that's life.

isn't that partly the theme of Middlemarch

I am going through similar midlife crisis for that is what it is I think, nothing wrong with shaking it up, questions what is and see what comes of it

ageing without giving up being you
notoriety on the other hand never really appealed to me

post was really for OP