Settling For Mediocrity Quotes

It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.

Often people that settle in life are those that only do what they can with what they have and where they are. Never settle for someone that didn't know your worth from the beginning, or build a life without God in it. Live beyond your low expectations.

Most humans, in varying degrees, are already dead. In one way or another they have lost their dreams, their ambitions, their desire for a better life. They have surrendered their fight for self-esteem and they have compromised their great potential. They have settled for a life of mediocrity, days of despair and nights of tears. They are no more than living deaths confined to cemeteries of their choice. Yet they need not remain in that state. They can be resurrected from their sorry condition. They can each perform the greatest miracle in the world. They can each come back from the dead...

Top 10 Deathbed Regrets: 1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life other people expected of me. 2. I wish I took time to be with my children more when they were growing up. 3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings, without the fear of being rejected or unpopular. 4. I wish I would have stayed in touch with friends and family. 5. I wish I would have forgiven someone when I had the chance. 6. I wish I would have told the people I loved the most how important they are to me. 7. I wish I would have had more confidence and tried more things, instead of being afraid of looking like a fool. 8. I wish I would have done more to make an impact in this world. 9. I wish I would have experienced more, instead of settling for a boring life filled with routine, mediocrity and apathy. 10. I wish I would have pursued my talents and gifts. (contributed by Shannon L. Alder, author and therapist that has 17 years of experience working with hospice patients)

I felt I was drawing close to that age, that place in life, where you realize one day what you'd told yourself was a Zen detachment turns out to be naked fear. You'd had one serious love relationship in your life and it had ended in tragedy, and the tragedy had broken something inside you. But instead of trying to repair the broken place, or at least really stop and look at it, you skated and joked. You had friends, you were a decent citizen. You hurt no one. And your life was somehow just about half of what it could be.

Your woman knows your weaknesses better than anybody. She knows where you will falter and give up. She knows the degree of mediocrity you will settle for. And, she knows your true capacity as a full man, a man of free consciousness and love. Her gift, if she is a good woman, is to test you with her darkest moods, over and over and over, until your consciousness is unperturbed by feminine challenge, and you are able to pervade her with your love, just as you are here to pervade the world. In response to your fearless consciousness, she will drench your world in love and light.

In some ways, I think that part of what of what I'm trying to accomplish, whether Amá really understands it or not, is to live for her Apá, and Olga. It's not that I'm living life for them, exactly, but I have so many choices they've never had. And I feel like I can do so much with what I've been given. What a waste their journey would be if I just settled for a dull mediocre life.

You have to have a habitual vision of greatness … you have to believe in fact that you will refuse to settle for mediocrity. You won’t confuse your financial security with your personal integrity, you won’t confuse your success with your greatness or your prosperity with your magnanimity … believe in fact that living is connected to giving.

You needn't settle for a mediocre life just because the people around you did.

A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries. He may regard the general, impersonal foundations of his existence as definitely settled and taken for granted, and be as far from assuming a critical attitude towards them as our good Hans Castorp really was; yet it is quite conceivable that he may none the less be vaguely conscious of the deficiencies of his epoch and find them prejudicial to his own moral well-being. All sorts of personal aims, hopes, ends, prospects, hover before the eyes of the individual, and out of these he derives the impulse to ambition and achievement. Now, if the life about him, if his own time seems, however outwardly stimulating, to be at bottom empty of such food for his aspirations; if he privately recognises it to be hopeless, viewless, helpless, opposing only a hollow silence to all the questions man puts, consciously or unconsciously, yet somehow puts, as to the final, absolute, and abstract meaning in all his efforts and activities; then, in such a case, a certain laming of the personality is bound to occur, the more inevitably the more upright the character in question; a sort of palsy, as it were, which may extend from his spiritual and moral over into his physical and organic part. In an age that affords no satisfying answer to the eternal question of 'Why?' 'To what end?' a man who is capable of achievement over and above the expected modicum must be equipped either with a moral remoteness and single-mindedness which is rare indeed and of heroic mould, or else with an exceptionally robust vitality. Hans Castorp had neither one nor the other of these; and thus he must be considered mediocre, though in an entirely honourable sense.

Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whichever end.

All people are standing; you got to standout! All people are breaking grounds; you got to breakthrough grounds! Don't settle for less; rise up and stand tall in what you do!

Bad music is a form of murder to the true art of music in general.Bad music forced on a child is abuse because it invariably forms that child´s taste in music. Bad music has raped an industry that was held up strongly by great expression for decades but now finds itself floundering, giving in to the lowest common denominator of music just to keep its panties around its waist. Bad music tortures the eardrums and kills little bits of your senses through prolonged exposure. Bad music steals money from shallow pockets, steals airtime from more deserving bands and songwriters, and steals the spotlight from undiscovered geniuses who have all but given up on a dream because of the mediocrity of popular radio. Bad music is a lie, and yet it is foisted on the public in an attempt to turn melodies and songs into hamburgers and fries. Bad music is truly a sin because you don´t have to be exceptional to make it in the music industry anymore. You just have to be good enough to stick around and be tolerated. I understand that bad music is a matter of opinion. I know that. But I am fairly confident that more people agree with me than you suspect. Bad music is just fucking bad.

My greatest fear for my life and yours is that we'll just get busy and distracted and settle for a mediocre, unexamined life. It's that we'll just settle into life as usual and never become the person God intended for us to be.

Why is Mediocrity now good enough? When did crap become the new black?

If you don't have the ambition to be the very best at what you do, then what's the point? If you aim for greatness but keep missing -- fine. At least you had the guts to aim. There's honour in failing that way. But there's nothing honourable about settling for mediocrity.

Don’t settle for living mediocre. Focus on all the positive and embrace it. Ignore the negative and be thankful for every single day.

[H]e was soon to be head clerk; it was time to settle down. So he gave up his flute, exalted sentiments, and poetry; for every bourgeois in the flush of his youth, were it but for a day, a moment, has believed himself capable of immense passions, of lofty enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of sultanas; every notary bears within him the debris of a poet.

Too many people in our society have settled for mediocrity. For one reason or another, their lives have been put on cruise control, and with each passing day, their feelings of emptiness grow.

This was the second stage in my life, a step in my personal evolution--abandoning the idea of being different, and settling for normal... Gradually I drew nearer to the world, and the world drew nearer to me.

She knew it was weird that she'd reached out to him the way she had. But she also knew that there were a lot of people in the world who regretted never doing the things they felt were right because they were afraid of seeming strange or crazy. Lisa wouldn't settle for that sort of mediocre existence, one bound by invisible social cues. And she had a good feeling that someone like Solomon Reed would appreciate that.

To be a runner is to learn continual life lessons. To be a coach is not just to teach these lessons but also to feel them in the core of your marrow. The very act of surpassing personal limits in training and racing will bend the mind and body toward a higher purpose for the rest of my runners' lives. Settling for mediocrity-settling instead of pushing-those who learn to be the best version of themselves know the secret to a full life.

If you settle for mediocrity, you’ll ultimately become mediocre.

They jostled one another, competed for space below as they did above, in a minuet of ruin and triumph. In the subway, down in the dark, no citizen was more significant or more decrepit than another. All were smeared into a common average of existence, the A's and the C's tumbling or rising to settle into a ruthless mediocrity. No escape.

In some ways, I think that part of what I’m trying to accomplish—whether Amá really understands it or not—is to live for her, Apá, and Olga. It’s not that I’m living life for them, exactly, but I have so many choices they’ve never had, and I feel like I can do so much with what I’ve been given. What a waste their journey would be if I just settled for a dull, mediocre life. Maybe one day they’ll realize that.

Never settle for anything less. The greatest injustice you can do to yourself is to be mediocre. Do your best, even if you have to make a lot of sacrifices, even if you're afraid of failing, even if people discourage you and say otherwise. When you know that you have done all that you can, there will be no room for regret, shame, anger, humiliation, and frustration, no matter what.

It's a simple choice! We can all be good boys and wear our letter sweaters around and get our little degrees and find some nice girl to settle, you know, down with... Take up what a friend of ours calls the hearty challenges of lawn care... Or we can blaze! Become legends in our own time, strike fear in the hearts of mediocre talent everywhere! We can scald dogs, put records out of reach! Make the stands gasp as we blow into an unearthly kick from three hundred yards out! We can become God's own messengers delivering the dreaded scrolls! We can race satan himslef till he wheezes fiery cinders down the back straight away... They'll speak our names in hushed tones, 'those guys are animals' they'll say! We can lay it on the line, bust a guy, show them a clean pair of heels. We can sprint the turn on a spring breeze and feel the winter leave our feet! We can, by god, let out demons loose and just wail on!

It doesn’t cost more to strive for excellence, but if you settle for mediocrity, it’ll cost you dearly.

I know you’ve never been told this before, but a life without sensuality is far beneath what you deserve.

Some people live easily with mediocrity, with settling for something that isn’t exactly right.” She tossed a small rock hand to hand. “But you and I, we aren’t those people.

You need to be around people who challenge you to grow and who refuse to allow you to settle for mediocrity.

Improving yourself and your life is also self-love, because it means you recognize that you deserve more than settling for mediocrity.

You need to stop settling for mediocre. You deserve to have better friends than these selfish women who don’t feel the same about you as you feel about them. It’s time to clean house, rid your life of everything that causes you heartache.

You and your organization have the power to change everything. To create remarkable products and services. To over deliver. To be the best in the world. How dare you squander that resource by spreading it too thin. How dare you settle for mediocre just because you’re busy coping with too many things on your agenda, racing against the clock to get it all done.

For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.14

But there is something worse than settling for mediocrity. It’s exclusivity. It’s the temptation to up the ante and to raise the bar of discipleship so high that it disqualifies all but the most committed, and thus thins the herd that Jesus came to expand.

Someday you will rejoice your brave decision to come into the theme park of life refusing to settle for a mediocre ride on the merry-go-round. You chose to go on the big loop roller-coaster instead. So, stop sulking, raise up your hands and enjoy the thrill of the ride!

Life in God should be a daring adventure of love—a continuous journey of putting aside our securities to enter more profoundly into the uncharted depths of God. Too often, however, we settle for mediocrity. We follow the rules and practices of prayer but we are unwilling or, for various reasons, unable to give ourselves totally to God. To settle on the plain of mediocrity is really to settle for something less than God that leaves the heart restless and unfulfilled. A story from the desert fathers reminds us that giving oneself wholly to God can make a difference: Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”15

but here's a secret that no adult wants to admit: you will never get ahead in life if you play it safe. Sometimes you have to scream at the top of your lungs, jump without looking, and just trust that even if it goes as wrong as possible, it's still better than settling for mediocrity.

However, Nick acted as much as possible under the circumstances, and that was rectifying — it brought with it enjoyment and a working faith. He had not gone counter to the axiom that in a case of doubt one was to hold off; for that applied to choice, and he had not at present the slightest pretension to choosing. He knew he was lifted along, that what he was doing was not first-rate, that nothing was settled by it and that if there was essentially a problem in his life it would only grow tougher with keeping. But if doing one's sum to-morrow instead of to-day does not make the sum easier it at least makes to-day so.

Don't Settle for Mediocrity. Strive for Excellence

An elegant woman does not settle for mediocrity, because she is excellence oriented.

I knew that if I never found my great love, I would rather be single than settle for a mediocre relationship. I can’t bear to pretend happiness.

i was poised for greatness, but the poising game me a cramp so i have instead just settled for comfortable mediocrity... (Vimrod # 4904)

Don’t settle for poor performers. Keep in mind that one great person will always out-produce and out-perform two mediocre people.

Because I had no awareness of who I was or what I needed, I found myself settling for a mediocre relationship rather than holding out for what was best.

sometimes wondered if it would be better to let go of the pain of wanting and settle for the calm mediocrity of the status quo.

Passion is the essence of sensual living.

Life is too damn short to live in a mediocre way. Wake up with a purpose and make the best of each day and your short time on this earth. Stop saying, “I’ll do this when I have more money” or “I’ll start when I’m more settled.” Stop making excuses. What if I told you that all you need is what you have right now? That’s all you need to just make a start. It doesn’t matter if you’re 17, 30 or 50—set your alarm for tomorrow morning and wake up with a purpose. Always give your best and live your best life. Don’t let the years just pass you by, because we don’t get another chance.

Instant Gratification She didn’t need instant gratification, or want some short-term fling. But the world was piled with people looking to “feel good” for only a brief moment. Fast food, instant coffee, microwave dinners. Anything to cut time and make it easier. She wasn’t about to settle for cheap food and mediocre coffee, so why would she settle for your need of instant gratification?

Quitting is difficult. Quitting requires you to acknowledge that you’re never going to be #1 in the world. At least not at this. So it’s easier just to put it off, not admit it, settle for mediocre.

… Mr. Og. most humans, in varying degrees, are already dead. In one way or another they’ve lost their dreams, their ambitions, their desire for a better life. They have surrendered their fight for self esteem and they have compromised their great potential. They’ve settled for a life of mediocrity, days of despair and nights of tears. There are no more than living deaths confined to cemeteries of their choice. Yet they need not remain in that state. They can be resurrected from their sorry condition. They can each perform the greatest miracle in the world. They can each come back from the dead…

When you’re not seeing any sign of it, that’s a test. What are you made of? Are you going to give up, get discouraged, settle for mediocrity, or are you going to keep believing despite what you’re seeing?

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me--This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

Here’s the bad news. You and everyone else around you have been trained not to just settle for mediocrity, but to actually strive for it. You’ve been force-fed the concept that simple is better, that average is supreme, that losing is winning. You’ve been running towards the wrong goal and you’ve wasted a tremendous amount of your precious life trying to go after something that you’ve incorrectly convinced yourself you want. Honestly, you’re a fucking idiot.

Please allow me to offer you three pieces of advice: One: Be bold. Never miss an opportunity to let your brilliance shine and dazzle. Take that chance. Accept the challenge, or if the challenge doesn’t arise, make your own challenges. Two: Don’t settle for mediocrity. Find a dream and pursue it. Allow every decision you make to bring you closer in achieving that dream. And three: Have fun. Take time to play, because if you’re not having a good tear-squirting belly laugh, chances are you’re doing it wrong. I will not wish you good luck. I don’t believe luck to be a necessary ingredient for success. Instead, I wish you the wisdom to make good decisions. I’m sure you will be fabulous. Grace

For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.

At the edge of his consciousness, just outside the comprehensible grasp, he could sense the maelstrom of his repressed emotions; the humanity that was forced from him long ago. What was left was pure emotionless logic. Gone was the pre-tense of bumbling simpleton; gone was the outward show of social mediocrity; there was no reason to play human now. This was where Kato thrived, what he was crafted for, and as panic settled on the mortals below, Kato slowly unfurled the phenomenon that lay within.

Ortberg has said, For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.

You don't want to just get by, you want to get ahead. You don't want to settle for mediocrity, you want to strive for greatness. You don't want to get lost in the crowd, you want to stand out and lead the charge. Pushing the limits of your potential isn't easy, but it will be worth it.

Whenever I feel we are being less than we could be, we talk about it. It’s not always a long conversation. Sometimes it’s simply a reminder that we could settle for mediocrity or we could create something truly exceptional. Our relationship is wonderful because it’s a decision we make over and over.

But if life could be worse, didn’t that mean it could also be better?’” As it was, he settled for odd jobs, harvesting occasional crops, living a life that was destined never to rise above the menial. He was proof that the muzzling of motivation only makes for mediocrity, that every man needs a purpose.

They said love is fleeting, so we hung on to it through thick and thin. They said marriage is about compromise, so we made it about equality. They said jobs exist just to pay bills, so we made up one we enjoyed. They said you need to settle for a mediocre life, so we made it about chasing the extraordinary.

In 2011, Mark Brooks, a consultant to online-dating companies, published the results of an industry survey titled “How Has Internet Dating Changed Society?” The survey responses, from 39 executives, produced the following conclusions: “Internet dating has made people more disposable.” “Internet dating may be partly responsible for a rise in the divorce rates.” “Low quality, unhappy and unsatisfying marriages are being destroyed as people drift to Internet dating sites.” “The market is hugely more efficient … People expect to—and this will be increasingly the case over time—access people anywhere, anytime, based on complex search requests … Such a feeling of access affects our pursuit of love … the whole world (versus, say, the city we live in) will, increasingly, feel like the market for our partner(s). Our pickiness will probably increase.” “Above all, Internet dating has helped people of all ages realize that there’s no need to settle for a mediocre relationship.” From "A Million First Dates How online romance is threatening monogamy" in January/February 2013

In some ways, I think that part of what of what I'm trying to accomplish, whether Amá really understands it or not, is to live for her, Apá, and Olga. It's not that I'm living life for them, exactly, but I have so many choices they've never had. And I feel like I can do so much with what I've been given. What a waste their journey would be if I just settled for a dull mediocre life.

Many people hide inside of their “not-knowing” and, afraid of taking the risk, settle for mediocrity in their life. They imitate the same safe, easy life that other people walk. They mistake that for happiness and, inside of it, look for security. However, the moment that the defensive shields we’ve built up come down, all truths reveal themselves and speak to us. When we hear our inner voice and follow it, we can walk our own path.

your fellow human beings, you will find it hard to ignore the fact that very few people are happy, fulfilled, and leading purposeful lives. Most of them seem unable to cope with their problems and the circumstances of daily living. The majority, settling for the average, have resigned themselves to “just getting by.” Resignation to mediocrity has become a way of life. As a result, feelings of inadequacy cause people, quite humanly, to blame society, other people, circumstances, and surrounding conditions for their failures and disappointments. The idea that people and things control their lives is so thoroughly ingrained in their thinking that they normally will not respond to logical arguments that prove otherwise. William James, the eminent philosopher and psychologist, once observed that, “The greatest discovery of our age has been that we, by changing the inner aspects of our thinking, can change the outer aspects of our lives.” Wrapped up in this brief statement is the dynamic truth that we are not victims, but co-creators in the building of our lives and the

The subway was the great leveler—underground, the Wall Street titans stood in the shuddering car and clutched the same poles as the junior IT guys to create a totem of fists, the executive vice presidents in charge of new product marketing pressed thighs with the luckless and the dreamers, who got off at their stations when instructed by the computer’s voice and were replaced by devisers of theoretical financial instruments of unreckoned power, who vacated their seats and were replaced in turn by unemployable homunculi clutching yesterday’s tabloids. They jostled one another, competed for space below as they did above, in a minuet of ruin and triumph. In the subway, down in the dark, no citizen was more significant or more decrepit than another. All were smeared into a common average of existence, the A’s and the C’s tumbling or rising to settle into a ruthless mediocrity. No escape. This was the plane where Mark Spitz lived. They were all him. Middling talents who got by, barnacles on humanity’s hull, survivors who had not yet been extinguished. Perhaps it was only a matter of time.

there are four internal conflicts that tend to show up most often and that we must overcome. First, we have a brain that registers new opportunities as dangerous. We also reject the notion that we are deserving of all that we want and instead settle for mediocre effort and results in one, several, or all areas of our lives. We lose sight of our innate gifts and fail to see all that we can accomplish. Finally, we allow the world to influence our thinking and even define us, which usually leads us to believe that we are less capable than we actually are.

INITIATE Life is too damn short to live in a mediocre way. Wake up with a purpose and make the best of each day and your short time on this earth. Stop saying, “I’ll do this when I have more money” or “I’ll start when I’m more settled.” Stop making excuses. What if I told you that all you need is what you have right now? That’s all you need to just make a start. It doesn’t matter if you’re 17, 30 or 50—set your alarm for tomorrow morning and wake up with a purpose. Always give your best and live your best life. Don’t let the years just pass you by, because we don’t get another chance. This is it.

Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business; for the experience of age in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them; but in new things abuseth them . . . . Young men, in the conduct and management of actions, embrace more than they can hold, stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue absurdly some few principles which they have chanced upon; care not to” (i.e., how they) “innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences . . . . Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly it is good to compel employments of both, . . . because the virtues of either may correct the defects of both.

As we leave our youth, there’s a pull toward complacency. We can start to coast, settle for what’s familiar and lose the juicy desire to expand our frontiers. We adopt the paradigm of a victim. We make excuses and then recite them so many times we train our subconscious mind to think they are true. We blame other people and outer conditions for our struggles, and we condemn past events for our private wars. We grow cynical and lose the curiosity, wonder, compassion and innocence we knew as kids. We become apathetic. Critical. Hardened. Within this personal ecosystem the majority of us create for ourselves, mediocrity then becomes acceptable. And because this mindset is running within us each day, the viewpoint seems so very real to us. We truly believe that the story we are running reveals the truth—because we’re so close to it. So, rather than showing leadership in our fields, owning our crafts by producing dazzling work and handcrafting delicious lives, we resign ourselves to average.

We had a second date that night, then a third, and then a fourth. And after each date, my new romance novel protagonist called me, just to seal the date with a sweet word. For date five, he invited me to his house on the ranch. We were clearly on some kind of a roll, and now he wanted me to see where he lived. I was in no position to say no. Since I knew his ranch was somewhat remote and likely didn’t have many restaurants nearby, I offered to bring groceries and cook him dinner. I agonized for hours over what I could possibly cook for this strapping new man in my life; clearly, no mediocre cuisine would do. I reviewed all the dishes in my sophisticated, city-girl arsenal, many of which I’d picked up during my years in Los Angeles. I finally settled on a non-vegetarian winner: Linguine with Clam Sauce--a favorite from our family vacations in Hilton Head. I made the delicious, aromatic masterpiece of butter, garlic, clams, lemon, wine, and cream in Marlboro Man’s kitchen in the country, which was lined with old pine cabinetry. And as I stood there, sipping some of the leftover white wine and admiring the fruits of my culinary labor, I was utterly confident it would be a hit. I had no idea who I was dealing with. I had no idea that this fourth-generation cattle rancher doesn’t eat minced-up little clams, let alone minced-up little clams bathed in wine and cream and tossed with long, unwieldy noodles that are difficult to negotiate. Still, he ate it. And lucky for him, his phone rang when he was more than halfway through our meal together. He’d been expecting an important call, he said, and excused himself for a good ten minutes. I didn’t want him to go away hungry--big, strong rancher and all--so when I sensed he was close to getting off the phone, I took his plate to the stove and heaped another steaming pile of fishy noodles onto his plate. And when Marlboro Man returned to the table he smiled politely, sat down, and polished off over half of his second helping before finally pushing away from the table and announcing, “Boy, am I stuffed!” I didn’t realize at the time just how romantic a gesture that had been.

Well, first of all,” he began, “I really…I really like you.” He looked into my eyes in a seeming effort to transmit the true meaning of each word straight into my psyche. All muscle tone disappeared from my body. Marlboro Man was so willing to put himself out there, so unafraid to put forth his true feelings. I simply wasn’t used to this. I was used to head games, tactics, apathy, aloofness. When it came to love and romance, I’d developed a rock-solid tolerance for mediocrity. And here, in two short weeks, Marlboro Man had blown it all to kingdom come. There was nothing mediocre about Marlboro Man. He had more to say; he didn’t even pause to wait for a response. That, in his universe, was what a real man did. “And…” He hesitated. I listened. His voice was serious. Focused. “And I just flat don’t want you to leave,” he declared, holding me close, resting his chin on my cheek, speaking directly into my ear. I paused. Took a breath. “Well--” I began. He interrupted. “I know we’ve just been doing this for two weeks, and I know you’ve already made your plans, and I know we don’t know what the future holds, but…” He looked at me and cupped my face in his hand, his other hand on my arm. “I know,” I agreed, trying to muster some trite response. “I--” He broke in again. He had some things to say. “If I didn’t have the ranch, it’d be one thing,” he said. My pulse quickened. “But I…my life is here.” “I know,” I said again. “I wouldn’t…” He continued, “I don’t want to get in the middle of your plans. I just…” He paused, then kissed me on the cheek. “I don’t want you to go.” I was tongue-tied as usual. This was so strange for me, so foreign--that I could feel so strongly for someone I’d known for such a short time. To talk about our future would be premature; but to totally dismiss that we’d happened upon something special wouldn’t be right, either. Something extraordinary had occurred between us--that fact was indisputable. It was the timing that left so much to be desired. We were both bleary eyed, tired. Falling asleep standing up in each other’s arms. Nothing more could be said that night; nothing could be resolved. He knew it, I knew it; so we settled on a long, lasting kiss and an all-encompassing hug before he turned around and walked away. Starting his diesel pickup. Driving down my parents’ street. Driving back to his ranch.

Mediocrity doesn’t always mean underperforming—it’s a sliding scale and a state of mind. It means settling in and succumbing to stasis. Mediocrity comes from the Latin words medius, meaning middle, and ocris, meaning rugged mountain. Literally translated, it means to settle halfway to the summit of a difficult mountain. It’s a compromise of abilities and potential; a negotiation between the drive to excel and the biological urge to settle for the most comfortable option.

The person who knows you the best is you. We have eyes that watch ourselves. We know what we want. You need courage not to turn away from that. Even when it comes to our own problems, there are many times when we say, "I don't know," and fool ourselves. Because when we acknowledge we know something, we have to act on it, so we tell ourselves we don't. Many people hide inside of their "not-knowing" and, afraid of taking the risk, settle for mediocrity in their life. They imitate the same safe, easy life that other people walk. They mistake that for happiness and, inside of it, look for security. However, the moment that the defensive shields we've built up come down, all truths reveal themselves and speak to us. When we hear our inner voice and follow it, we can walk our own path.

Far too many couples settle for mediocrity in their marriage when they would never settle for second-best in other areas of their life.

But now I realise that I’ve settled for mediocrity. How had I let it happen? How did I lose myself?

Most of us have come to the place where we don’t anticipate being filled with the Spirit or expect it as the standard of normal Christian living. We’ve become willing to settle for good-looking mediocrity (even the flesh has a “good side”) that makes minimal attempts at pleasing God, yet is governed by a love for what feels good at the moment.

Those who do not continuously seek knowledge are content to settle for mediocrity.

No sense in settling for mediocre minions

Most of us stumble into the kingdom with nary a clue how to do this. So we thrash about, make reckless attempts, arm ourselves with slogans, goad ourselves with guilt, fail and fail and fail, and finally settle for spiritual mediocrity. Our inner lives remain cramped and musty. We resort to mere conformity, to a masquerade of piety to cover up for our lack of real Christlikeness.

Poetry - It's a Tough Life! It does not suit a man to settle for less than he can be, anymore that it fits a lowly flies to stay but writhing maggots. So quit your bullshit day jobs, unfetter the shackles of mediocrity! Arise stock boys, Abercrombie P/T Asst. Managers and F/T faggots. Take up the quill, assume the countenance of the all-know-it poet. Fill this besotted world with your rhymes, unveiled wisdom, your wit. You need neither high skool equivalency diploma nor baccalaureate ~ Us poets at Hello Poetry just wants to get the skinny on all ya’ shit. Move back to your mom’s basement, even her garret will do. Order in pizza and Chinese, pump up the volume, and get crackin! Load Call Of Duty on your PlayStation, be disciplined, follow through. Blaze some 420, smell the roses, text your friends ~ livin' ain’t slackin'! We invite adversity, woe and want ~ indeed, a poet’s life is hard, But nothing beats chillin’ at home all day, just playin’ the fucking bard.

Never Settle! The are four things in life you should never settle for: mediocre love, so-so sex, lousy pizza and bad poetry.

Settling is no fun. It’s a malignant habit, a slippery slope that takes you to mediocrity.

Now many times when ideas aren’t unfolding or operating smoothly, or we aren’t working them well, we lose focus. It is part of a natural cycle and it occurs because the idea has gotten stale or we have lost our ability to see it in a fresh way. We have ourselves grown old and creaky like the old man in “Three Gold Hairs.” Although there are many theories on creative “blocks,” the truth is that mild ones come and go like weather patterns and like seasons—with the exceptions of the psychological blocks we talked about earlier, such as not getting down to one’s truth, fear of being rejected, being afraid to say what one knows, worrying about one’s adequacy, pollution of the basic flow, settling for mediocrity or pale imitations, and so on.

Never settle for something your heart, mind and soul aren't in sync with. Life is too short and the cost for it isn't cheap enough to live in a mediocre fashion.

Ignorance, mediocrity, and mistakes run rampant when organizations fail to link the right people to the right information at the right time. This

Will you keep believing even when your situation looks impossible? Life will try to push you down, steal your dreams and talk you into settling for mediocrity, but if you will stay in faith and stir up what God’s put on the inside, He will bring every promise to pass.

Don’t lose money!” But for many investors, that means having to settle for mediocre returns in the Security Bucket.

Don’t settle for good when you were destined to be great.

Do not just be contented with being average because settling for less is a habit that breeds mediocrity. Make excellence your watchword and pursue it relentlessly at all times.

What a waste their journey would be if I just settled for a dull, mediocre life. Maybe one day they’ll realize that.

But if life could be worse, didn’t that mean it could also be better?’” As it was, he settled for odd jobs, harvesting occasional crops, living a life that was destined never to rise above the menial. He was proof that the muzzling of motivation only makes for mediocrity, that every man needs a purpose. -The Orphan Keeper

You are unique, Niya. Don’t let anyone take that from you! Your existence is a gift to this world! Do not settle for mediocrity, and do not give into conformity.

If being a perfect soldier meant continuing to follow any fucking order I was given, then I would have to settle for being a mediocre soldier.

In some ways, I think that part of what I'm trying to accomplish, whether Amá really understands it or not, is to live for her, Apá, and Olga. It's not that I'm living life for them, exactly, but I have so many choices they've never had. And I feel like I can do so much with what I've been given. What a waste their journey would be if I just settled for a dull mediocre life.

Don’t settle for a world that has settled, for that ends up being unsettling for both.

Great leaders are ordinary men and women who refuse to settle for mediocrity because their aim is to lead followers to greatness.

Most of us will not be tempted to deny our faith, but many of us will be so distracted that we settle for a mediocre version of it.