My muddle to mediocrity: When good enough is good enough

It’s a revelation to do something for pleasure, not for accolades, to realize that excellence is not a prerequisite for enjoyment.

I am not a handyman, or a particularly handy man. With alarming regularity, my wife comments on the softness of my hands (Um, it’s called 24-hour moisturizer.). They may not have gripped many power tools, but when you move in to a new house and your wife is pregnant with twins in her last trimester, well, it’s hammer time.

Previously, my limitations in that arena were shameful, and doubly so since I have a father-in-law who could rebuild Noah’s Ark. But I’m pleased to report that with some practice, trial and error, and YouTube, I’ve acquitted myself entirely adequately in our new home. I won’t be fashioning canoes out of mahogany anytime soon, but I’ll get those towel racks, hooks, picture frames, blinds, and toilet paper holders up and running in just slightly more time than it would take the average person.

I don’t want to undersell myself, though, because even seemingly simple installations can require real ingenuity. In one particularly cramped bathroom, I had to install the toilet paper holder inside the medicine cabinet door, so that it only becomes available when you swing the door open. 

I’ve come a long way from my days of getting flustered in Home Depot. When the Orange Apron approached and those warehouse lights shined bright, my practiced vocabulary – cylinder head bolts, socket head cap screws, expansion shields, flange nuts, and the dreaded knurled nut – would abandon me, like a new language learner thrust into an unexpected conversation.

I’m still vexed by the verbiage, but I’ve found a distinct satisfaction in mastering the installation of household knicks and knacks, and through that effort, a new respect for the merits of mediocrity. After all, if you’re average at most things in life, on average you’d probably be above average.

This marks a departure from my previous approach. For much of my life, I shied away from new ventures. My thinking was that if I wasn’t ever going to be great at something, then what was the point? Not wanting to waste my time, I would never get started. And that’s why I still can’t ski down a bunny hill.

I don’t know if it’s early-middle-aged wisdom, or the surge of confidence I feel when I wield a power drill, but my thinking has flipped. These days I’m thoroughly enjoying my muddle to mediocrity in new fields, including birding, biking, swimming, piano, and now home improvement. I’m not particularly good at any of them, and yet all have enriched my life. I can hardly wait to get to golf and fishing.

What is it about mediocrity that’s so marvelous? When you know you won’t be great at something – now that I’m 38, my concert pianist window has closed – the pressure recedes and you can just enjoy learning or doing for its own sake.

It’s a revelation to do something for pleasure, not for accolades, to realize that excellence is not a prerequisite for enjoyment.

In one of his principal pieces, “Metaphysics,” Aristotle observes, “All men by nature desire to know.” I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking about drywall installation, but I’ll run with it. 

The quest for competence may not sound particularly inspiring, but through it I’ve found a surprising source of continual challenge, growth, fulfillment, and perhaps, even a kind of excellence.

So here’s an invitation. Grab your aspirational instrument of choice – binoculars, goggles, skis, trumpet, paintbrush, fishing line, five iron, knurled nut – and join me on the ascent to average.