From + The + Vault: Teaching Our Children to Be Joyfully Mediocre

The From the Vault* was initially posted on May 23, 2013, on HuffPost. It has been lightly edited, and most of the original links are dead.

I love playing the guitar.

But truth be told, I am not very good.

Sure, I can rock out on "Shine Jesus Shine," "One Tin Soldier" or "Brown-Eyed Girl" like no one's business, but I am pretty sure that I have reached my peak. I am fine knowing that my 12 chords and I could lead a campfire sing-along, but I am fully aware that my window to be good enough to be "in the band" closed a long time ago.

And really, it's OK. I'll be fine.

I love being able to just be mediocre.

In some ways, it's sad that I have to give myself permission to not try hard to excel at playing guitar: take lessons, schedule practice, and play until my fingers bleed -- but in our hyper-achievement society, this is apparently what it has come to. We must give ourselves permission not to feel compelled to be the best and enjoy doing something for the sake of doing it. While I believe that we are called to tend to the passions, talents, and skills that reside within each of us, that does not always equate to being the best and most talented at them all. Sometimes, tending our passions means allowing ourselves be, in the eyes of the world — mediocre.

As my wife and I raise our daughters, this is a constant tension for us. Of course, we want them to do well in whatever they are passionate about and called to pursue, but we also do not want to communicate that their worth and their joy comes from achievement and competency in all things because, despite what we would like to think, in reality, no one can be amazing at everything. Ultimately, our sense of worth and joy can be just as nourished by doing something that we love, whether we are good at it or not.

It seems that society and parents -- both with good intentions -- forget that sometimes, whether it is kicking a ball in soccer, making music with a violin, or expressing oneself through drawing, joy can be found in the act of doing those things, and not the trophy, the applause or the recognition. I know that it is a fine line when parenting: when to push, when to pull back, or when to stop altogether, but we must never communicate that excellence is the sole determiner of participation in an activity. When we forget that not all things must be mastered, we too often discourage our children from doing things they love, or we push so hard that the activities no longer remain life-giving endeavors.

One of the things that we parents can do to model this joyful mediocrity is to acknowledge those things that we, ourselves, are not very good at — but love to do anyway. We can also return to those things that we may no longer do because we fell into the trap of thinking that we had to be good at it for it to be worth our time. I suspect that when our children see us not excelling at something and being OK with it, they too will excel at embracing and doing those things that they love and bring them joy.

Now, go forth and be mediocre. Joyfully.

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* Over the years, I have blogged on many sites and servers, so I have lost a lot of content by moving around. Thanks to the magic of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, I can reclaim and reshare some of the ones that still hold meaning including www.reyes-chow.com, Typepad, my Moderator Blog. Some posts will also come from still available: SF Gate City Brights, The Huffington Post, and Patheos.