I have heard this expression used to describe a few people we knew in school or back a few years when I ask people I run into about so and so and how are they doing.

It's like their saying their lives are dull and they fell into a rut, or what, their sluggish, boring, didn't achieve things?

I have seen a few I ask about and they seem happy I think what satisfies and makes a person happy is more important than keeping up with the joneses

How do you define mediocrity as to the way a person lives?

Good question...I would probably define mediocrity as to the way a person lives, by if they're doing something that is making them unhappy, or diluting them...like if they had hopes and dreams they aren't fulfilling...I would define a life of mediocrity probably as living without joy.

Who are we to judge? what may look like mediocrity to one person might be anything but to the person being viewed as lliving a mediocre life...who knows what great stirrings in the soul they might be feeling?

Well said Mr. Wolf...

I agree that mediocrity is living without joy...

.......... wrote:
You have probably seen this, some poor older guy or lady who lives in a big city and is alone,he or she doesn't have any family or friends they may be on disability or some type of small pension , and lives in some lonely dismal apartment, this goes on for years and years of their life until they become sick and has to go to a nursing home, that I think would be a life of mediocrity.

They go the store, and maybe a few shops but the same lonely drag and solitude I believe millions of people live like this.

Rick wrote:
Exactly...

.......... wrote: to RA my friend
I think many terms or ways we express ourselves to our UK friends may get taken wrong, or as a challenge to their wisdom and experience when it's not meant that way, even us being one from the north and the other from the southwest we have different ways to look at things.

I thought for example many here could identify and understand this thread, but not many responses, this makes me think people from the USA and UK are really of different mindsets, I think they handle hard times better for one, but I think they don't like certain type jokes or insinuations, theres many other differences I'm starting to see.

Kind of off topic post to you but I didn't want to interfere with your other reply in the other thread.

improving yourself or others every day = avoiding mediocrity

stagnant life = full mediocrity.

Idk, I think some people's mediocrity is another person's bliss. I don't even think it's living without joy, more like never doing anything out of the ordinary or noteworthy. That suits some people though. My life is pretty mediocre by many standards and I'm content with that! In fact, I'd go as far as to say that mediocre means average, although there are infinite shades of average and such a thing might not even exist.

Or, maybe nobody’s life is mediocre. The highs and lows we experience throughout our lives are anything but mediocre.

I'm not sure what you're getting at Rick, but that might be the US/UK cultural barrier.

Rick wrote:
Your right about the different mindsets and i also think they handle hard times better over there.

Stuff that we consider jokes or insinuations they take serious, I learned that here at Sanctum Zone.

As for your OP i also know a 59 year old lady who goes the the YMCA pool just like you described.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
Kind of like one person lives a quiet uneventful life and enjoys the peace and solitude where as another may consider it boring and start drinking or becomes suicidal during the holidays.

As to the difference in us Lesley many things that seem personal are not I think people from the USA have been programmed to generalize more than a more focused thought of a UK person, who knows what works better, do you kind of see what I mean?

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
Yea but a person who has an average life with great health is better off than say a wealthy person with bad heath.

So quality of life factors in to the perception of mediocrity...

Rick wrote:
Good Example...

I don't think it's a matter of being programmed or which one is better, it's just cultural differences. We even have them within different areas of the UK. You can pop across a thin stretch of sea here to France. They speak a completely different language. It's all very interesting. I've never been to the U.S. and I can only go on what other people tell me.

As for mediocrity, I am a self confessed hermit and introvert. I need my alone time to recharge and being around other people drains me. I get over stimulated easily. These days my idea of bliss is to have as little stress as possible and to live life in the slow lane.

how do you measure success.. health, wealth, happiness?
a happy idiot is more successful in life than a suicidal celebrity.

do you enjoy life.. or is your life so boring and dull you wish you were someone else.. i think thats mediocrity. its not finances its how satisfied do you feel at the end of your day.. good days work, or same shit different day.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
You see I look at that statement you made as your not wanting to tolerate others bull crap and don't feel the need to put up with it..........not a personal shortcoming you have about getting overly stimulated

batou wrote:
Millions are considered the lonely faceless mass, you made a good point about how you feel at the end of each day cause each day may be our last no guarantees buddy

Rick wrote:
It's no bad thing at all. My parents constantly told me that I needed to be more extrovert as a child, and that happens to a lot of introverted people. Now I know that there's nothing wrong with me, it's just my character.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
Exactly and right on !!!!!!!

"What is living a life of mediocrity?"

Not living up to the fullness of your potential.

Either by not exploring that fullness or not even attempting to acknowledge there being potential.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
That post could totally say phemohilia wrote: and still be sooo totally right on!!