mediocrity and not living-up to the world's standards

There are times in my life where I just feel mediocre. At more intense junctures in my life, it borders on inadequacy and incompetence. When the comparing mind establishes some ideal and then later determines that that ideal has not been met, this is when that feeling arises.

It seems when you are young, it takes less for you to feel satisfied. As you become older, it seems as if the bar by which you are judged, whether solely of the world, a manifestation of your mind, or some combination there-of, is raised. It's no longer enough to just get by. The satisfaction of any sort of accomplishment does not last and it is never good enough. Alas, I am a mediocre adult. There is nothing exceptional about my life aside from the fact that I am alive.

There's never enough money. There's never enough time You're never quite good enough. You make too many mistakes. Your grades are too low. Your relationships are not forever in harmony. Dissatisfaction has been the most consistent theme of my adult life.

Take control of your mind, or someone else will

It is important to have direction in life if only so you are not swayed by the whims of another or a group of others who would otherwise, knowingly or unknowingly use you for their own benefit. Finding that direction is something that may not be easy.

Edsger W. Dijkstra 1930-2002

"I realized that my previous projects had only been agility exercises. I now had to confront complexity itself and try to find out the best way to do difficult things. But it took me a long time to gather the courage to do that. Alan Turing committed suicide; Kurt Gödel was on and off in a mental hospital. I was terribly frightened.... I was essentially incommunicado, hardly spoke, did not work. I would sit all evening silently staring at the white walls in our living room. Finally, one night at half past two, my wife collected me weeping on the carpet in that room. From that moment I realized that something had to be done." -- Turing Award acceptance speech, 1984