The Case for Mediocrity

The night before my first book came out, I lay awake envisioning all the ways it could ruin my life. What if I get sued because I made a mistake? What if I get harassed online? What if I get such bad reviews I never work in journalism again? I’d spent the past 18 months obsessing over the project, thinking about it on a loop. I often struggled to sleep, ruminating over all the ways it might fall short. I started seeing a therapist for the first time in my life. My career was at its high point, and I had accomplished a dream so big I’d never actually thought it would come true, but my mental health had never been worse. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The fact that I was also living through and writing about the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic certainly didn’t help, but it was the stress of the book that really had me spiraling. By the time it was published in mid-2021, I was mentally and physically exhausted. I longed to do less, to forget about work and productivity and self-promotion and just…be. As it turns out, I had—and have—plenty of company. Around the time my book came out, so many people were quitting their jobs the media began calling it the “Great Resignation.” Then people started “quiet quitting,” proudly doing the bare minimum at work without actually resigning. Now, lots of people want a “lazy-girl job” that’s low-stress and high-pay. That’s hardly an...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news