Your Ideal Mediocre Life: It is not a Solution of Your Disapproval Over Hustle Culture

“I do not want to buy a house because I want to compete with other people, but because I want to buy a couch with my favorite color that I will put on my living room…”

There are already many articles that have been talking about hustle culture. The unhealthy working culture that the young generation has been dealing with finally has reached the awareness of its impacts on the generation’s mental condition.

The narration of a movement against the hustle culture is also being followed by another narration of living a mediocre life — not great, not bad, not average — as a healthier alternative culture, but do we really know what it means to have a mediocre life?

The Value Behind Mediocre Life and How It Is Misvalued Ambition

Mediocre life is not even about living an average life, even though the word mediocre itself means medium or average, but when we start talking about it, we actually are in the middle of a conversation that talks about a so-so life with no ambitions, exactly the opposite of the deep-rooted idea of hustle culture that is so full of ambitions.

But is it exactly what we need to do to avoid the hustle culture?

I have a very simple analogy here:

if you are against wasted water, does it mean you have to stop using water at all?

In this case:

if you hate the idea of being so full of ambitions (in hustle culture), does it mean you have to stop having any ambitions at all?

Since the beginning of how the hustle culture is being canceled, the problem has been always the culture itself, and ambition is only one of many aspects that are being misused, misvalued into a bad connotation. Ambition is supposed to be value-free until it is done by humans.

For example, the ambition of building your own business, is it bad or is it good? It is neither. It is bad when you try to build it by doing something harmful to your market or your competitors, but it is good when you build it healthily while being considered as well.

Why Should We Cancel Hustle Culture by Living a Mediocre Life While We Always Have Living a Decent Life as an Option?

Hustle culture is all about romanticizing overworking as the only way to earn respect from others. We, humans, have self-control. We can start from stop using others as your standard on how well you have been doing in your own life.

Yes, you are fine when your 30-year-old friend already bought two houses, while you do not even have one in your 30s, but it does not mean you have to stop having the ambition to have a house.

Yes, you are fine when your friend already got their Ph.D., while you think you are enough with your high school diploma, but it does not mean you have to stop achieving other passions that you would love to pursue.

Yes, you do not have to be amazing at everything. Yes, you do not have to be lack of sleep because of work. And yes, you still deserve to have some ambitions, even small ones, without getting involved in hustle culture, because you always have an option to be at least decent.

One thing that we have to remember, we do not work for anything other than achieving our own secures, dreams, and happiness.

I do not want to buy a house because I want to compete with other people, but because I want to buy a couch with my favorite color that I will put on my living room, I want to build a very cool kitchen set for me to cook my favorite foods, and I want to have a cute and big enough garden for BBQ party with my love ones.

So is It Still Possible for Someone to Have a Mediocre Life?

The idea of not being great, bad, or average is impossible. Yes, we call it our life, but even when we stop using others as our standard, we do not live only by ourselves.

Having a so-so live means you do everything only to get so-so results too. If you are still working, people whom you are working with must expect a great result from you. If you are still in a relationship, your partner is most likely to expect a great version of yourself too.

So it is slightly possible to have a mediocre life only when you literally live by yourself or with other mediocre people too.

And if you are decided that you will make your own environment that is full of a bunch of mediocre people, you are not mediocre anymore, because you just have the ambition to build your own environment. You are obsessed. It is contradictive with your idea of having no ambitions.

Living a mediocre life is not only bad, but it is impossible and naive — it is just another way of lazy people being lazy, but trying to make it more intellectual.

Be good to yourself, hustle culture is not the answer on how to live your life the best — but also be good to your dreams, mediocre life is not even close to what you deserve. The way of living is not exactly black and white. Put some colors on it with your favorite ones.