But Not Good Enough

Faced with the prospect of spending 25 hours of Shabbat with a husband whom I was, to put it mildly, not getting along with, I said “Fuck that” and skipped town. I drove two hours away to do something that was not Shabbat-friendly.

Photo by Taras Makarenko: https://www.pexels.com/photo/cars-ahead-on-road-593172/

Driving by myself when there’s little traffic and just easy highway driving, and I don’t have to deal with passengers puts me in a good mood. I sang along to the radio. Yeah, I’m old school and listen to the radio vs. streaming from my phone or something that would guarantee I hear the music I like, but it works for me.

I harmonized. I belted. I sang whatever and however I felt like. It felt so damn good.

And not to brag, but I sounded good. Like, really good.

I wasn’t on stage, but man, I sounded like I could be. Photo by Josh Rocklage on Unsplash

Singing that well puts me in a daydreaming mood. I started fantasizing about the opportunity to perform and show-off at a work talent show. Mind you, the likelihood of this ever materializing is approximately 0.0000%, and even if it did, I have at least one coworker who is a professional opera singer, so I would inevitably make a complete fool out of myself, quit my job out of humiliation and shame, and end up unemployed in a recession. But I was really enjoying indulging in the fantasy of it. Oh, and not just the fantasy of performing in public and being amazing at it, but also the fantasy of the-coworker-I-have-a-crush-on-that-I-will-absolutely-never-do-anything-about-but-man-is-it-fun-to-indulge-in-daydreaming being wowed by my ahmaaaazziingg performance and falling in love with me. Again, the likelihood of any of that happening is approximately 0.0000000000000%. But it was fun to fantasize.

***

The other thing that happened on Saturday was that I learned that someone I know personally got a book deal for their first novel that came with a $25,000 advance. In fact, I learned that this person was actually offered a two-book deal with a $50,000 advance – and was advised by their agent not to take the deal because their agent thought they could get a better offer for the second book.

Not a portrait of the published novelist I know or their book. This is a stock photo. Photo by Paul White on Unsplash

I am really happy for This Person. They are a talented writer, and they’ve worked really hard. I haven’t read this novel yet but based on what I know of This Person’s other writing, they absolutely deserve this.

But I also felt an odd unsettled feeling. It wasn’t jealousy exactly, but…

For context, you need to know that I had met This Person, now a Published Author With $25,000 Advance, a couple years ago in the context of a writing workshop where we were both participants, both learning from the same workshop leader. Their poetry was really good, but mine was good enough that I felt like we were peers. We talked about our work like we were peers.

And it is weird realizing that we weren’t peers. That This Person was so much better than me and was simply modest enough not to be conceited about it.

***

There seems to be a lot of things where I’m “good”, but not “good enough”:

• Writing – I know I am a good writer (although I cringe writing that because good writers don’t have to tell you they’re good). But I also know there are better writers.
• Singing – All the self-deprecation and angsty overlong posts aside, I know I’m not a bad singer. That my voice is such that you’ll look up and pay attention when I sing karaoke or chant Haftarah. But I also know that so many people are so much better. Even in competitive karaoke, I lost far more often than I won, and I humiliated myself more times than I can count.
• Career – On the one hand, my career looks respectable, especially to people not in my field or people wanting to enter my field. On the other hand, there are a lot of people in my industry niche who are a lot younger with far more impressive titles and making a lot more money than me. I have lies of omission on my resume/LinkedIn that make me look a couple years younger, and I still look old and under-accomplished in comparison.

Rationally, I know that this is just the reality of things. Most people are neither the very best nor the very worst; probability is such that we’re all muddling along somewhere in the mediocre middle.

This is exactly what Aristotle meant in his Doctrine of the Mean. Just kidding – it totally isn’t. I just needed an image to break up the self-deprecation and self-loathing in order to make this post less boring. Image by Couleur from Pixabay

Sometimes I wonder if it’s mentally easier to just be bad at something. Like I don’t have any angst about being a shitty chess player or a shitty golfer – I know I suck at those things and I can accept that. It’s the “good, but not good enough” things that I feel like I don’t know what to do with.

There are outlets, of course. Blogging. Karaoke and fun low-pressure song collabs with fellow bloggers (sorry Tim, I’ve been too preoccupied with other life drama to do any of the song collabs I owe you!) Continue working in and trying to rise in this industry niche, or switch to another one – whatever best optimizes the work-life balance to desired compensation/title/advancement opportunities ratio. Basically, do what you want and stop caring about what other people think. But that’s really hard to do.

***

I didn’t sing much on the drive back home.