The Only Thing to Fear is…

Halloween is here, as are the horror movie marathons on AMC, the SyFy Channel and the like. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll find the reruns of Friday the 13th, Halloween, and The Grudge easy to watch in the middle of the afternoon and regret it later that night when you walk into the dark bathroom and, just before you flick on the light, think about that creepy, little girl with the long, black hair that crawls out of the TV.

This led me to think about the things that we find ourselves fearing. Spiders and snakes, or Jason and Michael. There’s usually something or someone that gives us that “if it comes down to it, I have no issue with leaving a person-shaped hole in the wall and not even Usain Bolt could catch me” type of feeling. But then I kept thinking about it and I came up with one thing that we should all be afraid of: Mediocrity.

It’s amazing how fast and how quietly mediocrity can sneak up on you. It’s like the Predator in its invisibility and stealthiness and it doesn’t even have its own spooky theme music alerting its victims, making it all the more sneaky.  But then, it’s like the Blob, enveloping everything.

We like to get ourselves into a nice, little groove that combines comfort and ease. But that groove can quickly turn into a rut and before we know it, that rut might as well be a hole. (Incidentally, not unlike the well that that same creepy, little girl crawls out of in The Ring)

One day, we stop and look around and realize that our life isn’t quite where we would have liked it to have been at this stage in our life. It’s not terrible by any means. In fact, there’s plenty of things to be thankful for. But somewhere along the way, our dreams of vocational greatness took a back seat to a safe, steady paycheck. Or the fear of the unknown has led us to settle in what we perceive to be a safe environment, be it a physical location or a relationship. Few of us thrive on uncertainty but fewer still enjoy mediocrity, which seems to be very good friends with, if not family of, certainty and safety.

I know I’ve been guilty of this at my wife’s expense. With work and a newborn and social functions and the holidays now approaching, the easy thing to do is coast. But as far as relationships go, the worst thing to do is coast. As with every area of our lives that occasionally slip into mediocrity, it’s hard to go the extra mile to climb out of that groove, or rut or well. It takes work. And I’ve found that, sometimes, even when I think I’m working at it, I’m not. At least not as hard as I should.

Somebody smarter than I once said that “when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” I agree. But once you’ve stopped digging you have to go about finding a way upward.

So stop. Take a look around. Seek out the areas of mediocrity and do something about it. Put the shovel down, roll up your sleeves and get to work.