Making Peace With Mediocrity

You and I agree almost entirely, except for this one line: "Never resign yourself to not being able to do something."

I think resigning ourselves to a few obvious things empowers us to make the best of those things which are within our grasp.

 

and i think it does not. i resigned myself to many things, only to later learn the opposite. obviously some things are actually physically impossible, but don't be fooled by what APPEARS physically impossible. and if you try it and fail, analyze WHY you failed and how that can be corrected. if it can't, then, and only then it is impossible. on the other hand, if you can correct that problem, then you can eventually achieve the task, and it is up to you to decide whether to pursue it or not.

 

I don't know.

I was looking for something more like this:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtwXlIwozog"]YouTube - ‪Shawshank Redemption‬‏[/ame]

 

I am coming to terms that I may be the next Steven Seagal... only in looks.

 

Okay, so the Herb Perez example didn't best illustrate my point. I'll use anecdotal evidence, then. My mate Dave "Smudge" Smith was, for all intents and purposes, a fat lazy slob all his life until he turned 30. After having a kid he decided to change his life and went from being unable to do a single push up or walk half a mile without losing his breath, to completing his first Olympic distance triathlon (1.5km swim, 40km bike ride, 10km run) on his 31st birthday. A year later he won his first ever Half Ironman (1.9km swim, 90km bike ride, 21.1km run) just a few days following his 32nd birthday. Several weeks later he was made redundant from what he described as his "crappy office job." Having always wanted to be a soldier, and having turned himself into a bit of a machine, he enlisted into the elite Parachute Regiment. The upper age limit for joining is 32 years and 11 months so he was cutting it close. But he aced all the entrance tests, including blowing away all competition on the 1.5 mile run (time limit for applicants is 9 minutes 18 seconds to 9 minutes 40 seconds -- Smudge scored 7 minutes 48 seconds). Despite being ridiculed for being an old fart during training (the average age of recruits was 19 and the oldest member of his platoon staff was 27!), he completed the six month course and was even awarded Best Overall Recruit. He's been in for three years and is already a full blown corporal (usually takes 5-6 years for an average bod) and has served on two deployments to Afghanistan. He went from fat civilian to super-fit fighting machine in less than 3 years. Like Smudge says, "The only person responsible for your <expletive> life is you. You're also the only person responsible for changing it."

 

Osu,


Thank you for sharing the smudge short biography Van Zandt, very inspirational example.
Please congratulate your friend from me when you next see him.


Osu!

 

I don't believe my article either asserts or implies that someone cannot be in very good shape in their thirties. I congratulate your friend.

 

"Good shape" doesn't even begin to describe Smudge. The guy is a total machine. He went from (and these are his words) being a fat, lazy civilian with no sense of self worth to one of the most elite levels of soldiering that isn't special forces. Point I'm trying to make is that he achieved everything he's done on his own, by changing his mindset and refusing to accept anything less than the best.

If you accept mediocrity, that's all you're going to get. Personally I think it's just an excuse to get out of hard work. You want to be crap? Fine. But don't try to tell the rest of us it's okay to be crap. In my opinion, it isn't okay.

 

Damn right it's not OK.

 

Osu,


Great post Van zandt, thank you!


Osu!

 

THIS!

 

First of all, I'm not trying to tell you to do anything. Train however you want to train; it's no skin off my back.

Second, I am not talking about accepting crap. If my training ever comes to the point at which I am accepting crap, I will quit training. But there is a difference between accepting crap and making peace with reality.

Could a 35-year-old who's never played competitve sports start learning to play basketball and eventually average 26 points a game in the NBA? Of course not; by the time he's mastered the basics of the game, he'll have reached the age at which even the greatest players ever could no longer perform at the NBA level.

To continue the basketball analogy, coach Phil Jackson was a great power forward in his day, and since he retired from playing has certainly learned more about basketball and has probably been shooting hoops on his own time. Do you think he could work himself into shape to get out on the court and guard Blake Griffin?

The thing is, as silly as most of us agree these scenarios are in Western sports, many practitioners of Eastern martial arts really do buy into them. A significant portion of martial artists really do believe that starting at adulthood doesn't make a difference, and that the only reason their 65-year-old masters aren't rolling with the 25-year-old black belts is that the masters are too nice to embarass or hurt their students.

To make matters worse, many people seem to think that age and inexperience are obstacles that can be overcome by a meager two hours a week in the local McDojo, as if your friend could have achieved what he achieved by simply jogging twice a week. That's the other reality I have to come to grips with: that my family, my job, and my music will always be more important to me and take up more of my time than my martial arts training, and that I will only go so far with martial arts that low on my list of priorities.

By all means, keep striving to be the best martial artist you can be. I'm not suggesting anything less. What I am suggesting is that hanging onto delusions about an impossible future can keep us from making the most of the reality that is right in front of us.

 

Osu,


Yes.................... a good reality check is great once in a while; you created your own delusions, it is up to you to discard them and replace them with healthier expectations!
But what has that to do with mediocrity?
Nothing!

How are you measuring your success/progress? what are the metrics? What are your goals?

most important:
Why are you training?
Who are you training for?


It is more a case of making your peace with the passing of time and with yourself...


Osu!

 

OwlMatt,

I liked your article, and am a bit perplexed at all the hostility it incited. I think most athletes find words like "settle" and "mediocre" distasteful, regardless of the context.

I actually don't think you are "settling." You say you are excited about your future in MA, that you anticipate endless opportunities for learning, that you intend to pursue your practice until you can no longer stand. That doesn't sound like "settling" to me. I get what you're saying: that others may view your goals mediocre, because you are aiming for something other than total physical superiority. But to my mind, you are simply replacing an external standard of success with an internal standard. And I think that's admirable.

 

Osu,


It might be a poor choice of words, but please read the title of the thread again:
Making Peace With Mediocrity


Osu!

 

Ishkabibble, would you agree that blackbelts need to lead by example?

What kind of example is OwlMatt showing? OwlMatt appears to be to blaming everyone but himself for his situation. He is blaming family (stating family is more important than martial arts)... as if it isn't that way for all of us, family first, what makes him so different that he can blame them for his lack of training time?

OwlMatt, you asked about humility. Humility comes from responsibility. Brash young ones that used to pick fights because someone looked at them funny, grow up to find they have a son or daughter and start to realize that it is more important to protect their family than to pick fights cause someone looked at them funny.

OwlMatt, what responsiblity to you have as a black belt? You already showed disrespect to your own teachers by basically saying it is nothing more than watered down martial arts. Is there anything you still hold in high regard?

Humilty also is a test of character, coming from loss. What would be the case with you if your instructors now said, okay, settle for mediocritcy... you are no longer a black belt, you are a white belt?

Would you just quit?

P.S. You are not average, you are a black belt, now show it.

 

Thought the article was ok really, as far as I'm concerned the vast majority of people are going to be 'mediocre' if we take mediocre to mean average so it's a good thing to learn to be happy with it. Just because you work hard doesn't mean you aren't mediocre.

 

First of all, I'm not blaming anything on anyone. Something needs to be wrong in order to blame someone, and the point of the article is that nothing is wrong. Second, we all had more training time before we had families to support, right?

Okay, makes sense to me. How does this tie into what we're talking about?

First, let me note that, as I said in the article, I'm not a black belt in either art yet.

I have great respect for my teachers. My opinion that the vast majority of aikido and taekwondo are watered down to make them more accessible to the average hobbyist has nothing to do with my respect for my teachers. Frankly, the "watered down" line had nothing to do with the point of the article at all, except to illustrate how I am more of a beggar than a chooser when it comes to martial arts programs.

First of all, most instructors whose programs are part of a larger organization have no authority to do such a thing. But if such a thing were to happen, I would go find new instructors. Any instructor who would give out a rank and then take it away must not have put much stake in the giving of the rank in the first place.

Let me repeat something. You used a word I detest just now: settle. As I have said in the comments to this article already, what I am talking about in the article is not settling. I am not advocating doing any less than our best in the dojo. In fact, in the article, I refer to my future in the martial arts as a "long struggle".

Settling is what we do when we are unwilling to struggle. I intend to struggle as hard as I can every moment I am in the dojo.

No, I'm not. As the article said, I am not yet a black belt in either art yet.

 

Hey, someone understands what I'm saying! :love:

 

Oh well, my bad. I read the article and thought you said you had two black belts. I could not see a black belt writing in the way you did for my own reasons.

So have you decided if you are going to go for black belt some day... there is no time limit... but is it something you want to do?

P.S. If an instructor gives you a rank, they can take it away. Only grand master rank cannot be taken away.