Preface
In a recent Gallup poll, only fifty percent of respondents described themselves as “completely satisfied” with their current job. In the same poll, a paltry thirty-two percent reported being “completely satisfied” with the amount of money they earn.1
A survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago found that only fourteen percent of American adults consider themselves “very happy.”2
According to Cigna's Loneliness Index (I can't even imagine how depressing it must be to work in that office), a survey of more than 20,000 United States adults ages eighteen years and older revealed forty-six percent are either “sometimes” or “always” lonely. And just fifty-three percent of the respondents have "meaningful in-person social interactions, such as having an extended conversation with a friend or spending quality time with family, on a daily basis."
The self-help industrial complex is an $11 billion industry and you need only consider the previous statistics to know why.3 Self-diagnosed unsuccessful, unhappy, and unloved people spend a lot of money to de-“un” themselves into successful, happy, and loved people. The process is often long, expensive, and a lot of effort. (I’m exhausted just typing it.).
But there’s something even more concerning. The vast majority of these programs, classes, books, videos, podcasts, seminars, and webinars begin with the central premise that the person is not already successful, happy, or loved. Thus begins the arduous pedal-to-the-metal process of whipping up a lifeus maximus from scratch to replace the one that already existed in the first place. And that’s the subtle yet radical difference between the self-help industrial complex and this book: I believe we’re all born successful, happy, and loved. The problem is we just don’t always know it. Success, happiness, and love are not conditions or situations that must be installed in us by some external mechanism—especially ones that are laborious, expensive, and cut into our crucial video streaming time. The cruel irony is that the only thing preventing our success, happiness, and love is our own inability to realize it’s already ours by birthright. Why we do that and how to remedy it is why I wrote this book.
I'm M.K. Jackson, MFA (more on that title in a moment). I possess no degrees, credentials, or certifications in psychology, sociology, anthropology, or any other behavioral science for that matter. I've never read a psychology textbook, worked in social services, or counseled anyone on anything. I’ve never even successfully negotiated a lower cable bill. So, what qualifies me to tell you how to be successful, happy, and loving? In a word, disillusionment.
Having listened to countless audiobooks, videos, and webinars (reading just seemed like too much to ask of myself), I’ve experienced first-hand the ineffectual pursuit of success, happiness, and love through the self-help industrial complex. This many habits, that many agreements, these prophecies, those secrets, unleash this, let go of that. Yet I remained unmoved, unmotivated, and unimproved. Why? Because every one of those books, courses, programs, videos, audios, seminars, webinars, strategies, technologies, and cult of personalities have one thing in common: they’re a metric shit-ton of work. I mean you really have to bust your ass if you want results (and baby, my ass has already been busted enough).
I totally understand why there are so many fucked-up people in the world considering the endless goal setting, vision boarding, and journaling required to de-fuck yourself. I just don't have it in me to try that hard anymore. (Something about threshold and motivation if I remember correctly.) And it’s not because I’m lazy or a quitter. To the contrary, from completing the entire twenty miles on my first March of Dimes Walk-a-Thon when I was eleven years old, to finishing this book nearly five decades later, I don't quit.
I don’t try too hard either.
You know that school report card thing “does not apply himself?” That's mine. I invented that. I am profoundly gifted at not trying too hard—in everything. It's my wheelhouse, my expertise, my art, my religion. I carried a consistent, bulletproof C+ average from grade school to high school, into college, and through graduate school. It was like watching an electrocardiogram flatline for fifty years straight. Not a goddamn blip. Just a five-decade-long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Yet I “earned” two academic degrees in my life—TWO! A Bachelor of Arts in my twenties, and a Master of Fine Arts in my fifties. But it’s no accident that both degrees have the word arts in them. Given the arts are so much easier than the sciences or the businesses, I chose degrees that used coloring books rather than textbooks. I didn’t quit… but I didn’t try too hard either.
After I finished graduate school, while looking at my diploma and marveling at the fact that I had once again pulled one over on academia, I was suddenly imbued with a divine revelation: even though I invested only the most least minimal C-average effort in my MFA studies, I still “earned” the exact same degree as the A+ student who worked ten times harder than I did. They don’t print your GPA on the diploma so no one will ever know who got As and who got Cs. The only difference between that over-achieving show-off’s diploma and mine is the name below "conferred upon." At the end of the day we both have the same useless MFA and the same opportunity not to gain employment with it. It turns out that whole work hard and you’ll achieve your dreams thing is inconsistent with the facts—at least in my case… and I’m willing to bet in yours as well.
This realization excited me. I wanted that same minimal effort success (and, subsequently, happiness) I enjoyed in my academic life throughout my real life as well. My previous research found no significant correlation between greater effort and better results. Meaning, that just working hard for something does not in and of itself guarantee success. In fact, one can work too hard for something and the value of what is accomplished does not justify the expenditure of time and effort it took to obtain it. Conversely, there are also instances when one attains exactly what they desire with relatively little endeavor, thus serving up that old chestnut if you can dream it you can achieve it on a silver platitude.
I figured there must be hundreds, if not dozens of people in the world who, like me, yearn for a minimal commitment/moderate results brand of self-improvement. Building upon my own underwhelming life as the basis for a loosely structured plan, I sifted through lots of statistics I had no way of understanding, theories I had no interest in comprehending, and affirmations I had no intention of affirming. The data solidified what I already knew: I’m simply not willing to work that hard for something I’m not sure is worth the effort.
But what about other people? What have they learned about success, happiness, and love that could be edifying? I needed to talk to folks at a place in their lives where the power of their failures had crushed their hope to such an intensity that their regret would be instructive. So, I interviewed embittered people on their deathbeds. And unsurprisingly they all said pretty much the same three things to me:
1. "Who are you?"
2. "What’re you in my hospital room?" and
3. “Are you here to finally clean my bedpan?”
What I learned is that the golden years aren’t so golden when you’re dumping bedpan after bedpan filled with piss and shit into a hospital room garbage can—especially for uncooperative, remarkably belligerent people in the ICU who really should’ve been more thankful that anyone was showing interest in them and their shit and piss filled bedpans.
Oh well. Back to the drawing board.
I decided to change my approach. Maybe looking to others for their assessment of success, happiness, and love was the wrong tact as the bedpans had so incontestably attested. Maybe I needed to look closer to home. Maybe I needed to look to myself.
As with any universal human truth free of institutional bias and unreasonable effort, the authentic answers are found deep within ourselves. Only through soul searching, personal reflection, and the courage to face our demons, can we attain profound and everlasting success, happiness, and love.
Yeah, I guess so, but fuck. It all still seemed like a lotta work. Shit like journaling and goal setting and getting up early in the morning. All that twaddle the self-help industrial complex mongers. The same bunkum I’m trying to avoid.
Again, back to the drawing board.
Eventually, my process of ducking, diverting, and deferring coalesced into a radical rethinking of success, happiness, and love. They became less tangible. No longer extrinsic, ephemeral things to attain, but enduring, transcendental states to discover. In other words, “yes,” true anything comes from within.
I liked that. I worked for me. Well, except that I couldn’t do it. If success, happiness, and love were indeed within, I sure didn’t hear them calling out to me above the din of trying too hard, setting goals, and changing bedpans. But attaining success, happiness, and love is not working hard to become something. It’s cutting through the clutter and calming the chaos to discover the someone you already are.
Regardless of the trite bromides other people and institutions flog to define success, happiness, and love to their agendas (instead of yours), not everyone achieves at the same level, produces at the same quantity, or is cut out for the same greatness. And that’s okay—especially since those metrics really have nothing to do with true success, happiness, and love.
If you are unsuccessful, unhappy, and unloved, it’s because you’re trying way too hard. But if you’re willing to lower your sights and aim for the middle, you'll be astounded at what adequacy can do for you.
In my case, I simply embraced good enough, turned it into just enough, and made it more than enough. Now, in this book, I’m going to show you how to do the same.
M.K. Jackson
Los Angeles, 2024
1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/1720/work-work-place.aspx
2. https://www.norc.org/PDFs/COVID%20Response%20Tracking%20Study/NSF_COVID_Topline.pdf
3. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/united-states-self-improvement-products-and-services-market-report-2019-examination-of-the-11-billion-industry-300938743.html.
Introduction
Congratulations! You’ve made it this far in the book! Such commitment this early on definitely means you're serious about increasing the quality of your life through the unbridled power of mediocrity.
Countless people spend their entire lives looking for the meanings of success, happiness, and love. Me? I just looked in the dictionary and there they were...
success (noun): the achieving of the results wanted or hoped for; something that achieves positive results.
happy (adjective): feeling, showing, or causing pleasure or satisfaction.
love (verb): to like another adult very much and be romantically and sexually attracted to them, or to have strong feelings of liking a friend or person in your family.
Unfortunately, the Cambridge Dictionary is a bit vague on how they can be attained for purposes of life fulfillment.
Not to worry. You can also look for success, happiness, and love on Amazon (the dot-com, not the rainforest). As of this writing, an Amazon Books search for success returns over 60,000 results, happiness also nets over 60,000, and a query for love gets you over 70,000. Obviously they're all very popular topics. (By contrast, search eating vegetables, and you get a comparatively minuscule 10,000 returns.) However, while most of the books and their authors do indeed connect the dots between success, happiness, and love and an awesome, kick-ass new life, there is a devious catch: these books deliver the goods only if you exert maximum effort—and that means working hard. Really hard. You'd think reading an entire book would be asking enough of a person, but these tomes also require goal setting, journaling, workbooking, drafting plans, keeping calendars, taping shit to your bathroom mirror, and waking up early at an ungodly hour to do it all. Really early. Like, goddamned early. Some of these self-help programs even require you to exercise physically.
Fortunately, if you don't like to read, you can listen. There are thousands of audiobooks and podcasts unlocking the doors to success, happiness, and love. But be forewarned of the bait-and-switch here. Just because it's easier to listen than to read, don't think you’re off the hook. You still have to get up early to set goals, journal, and accomplish a lot of other ridiculously difficult shit. And I don’t mean crap like eating more vegetables or calling your friends more often. I’m talking about inane pursuits like landing your dream job, making a million dollars, and losing weight. Just one of those things is a life-long pursuit of never-ending agony and disappointment—but all three at once?
Are you a watcher rather than a listener? YouTube has thousands of videos on success, happiness, and love. You might find something of value in that digital sludge, but I doubt it. Now that everyone’s pocket phone has a movie camera, anyone with half-baked opinions can post a video. That means there's a lot of crap out there: unfounded theories, axe grindings, revenue streams, and auditions to become the next big influencer. More often than not, the purpose of these videos is to build the creator’s brand, not yours.
Do you prefer more modern tools for success, happiness, and love? You're in luck. There's an app for that—actually, scores of them. Coaching apps, motivational apps, journaling apps, goal-setting apps, and entrepreneurial apps. Apps for planning, apps for scheduling, and apps for accounting. There are even apps for making apps. Trouble achieving a happy balance between your personal and professional life? No problem. There are health apps, fitness apps, lifestyle apps, affirmation apps, and calming apps. Apps with relaxers, mood trackers, and white noise makers. Wellness apps, mindfulness apps, meditation apps, and even breathing apps (in case you don’t know how to breathe). Maybe you’re looking for love (or the next best thing for an hour or two). Finding that perfect someone has never been easier. With the right app, you can custom order a soulmate just like you would a pizza. There are dating apps, hookup apps, adultery apps, apps for young love, apps for old love, and apps for middle love. Straight apps, gay apps, bisexual apps, transgender apps, asexual apps. And if things don’t work out between you and your cybermate, don't sweat it. You can start all over again with a divorce app.
With all this information and advice out there readily accessible by reading, listening, watching, and swiping, you'd think finding success, happiness, and love in the twenty-first century would be a snap (or a tap). But it seems the more books, blogs, podcasts, programs, seminars, webinars, videos, and apps, the wider, deeper, and colder the chasm between us and our success, happiness, and love becomes.
Because you’re reading this book, it’s my assertion (and you know what they say when you make an assertion: you make an ass insertion), that you’ve tried other methods, courses, and schemes for success, happiness, and love, and came up short. That’s completely understandable for all the reasons I listed in the preface. (What??? You didn’t read the preface? Why is it most readers skip over the preface? Seriously, there’s important info in the preface. If you didn’t read it, please go back and do so. Thanks, MKJ.) But if your “journey” into self-improvement has you searching for an easier pathway to success, happiness, and love, one of minimal effort for commensurate results, you’ve come to the right place.
So, what does this book have that other books don't? Actually, it's what those other books have that this one doesn't: hard work. This book gives the boot and the finger to all those ineffectual cornerstones of the self-help industrial complex including journaling, goal setting, affirmations, and worst of all, waking up extra early in the morning just to journal, set goals, and affirm.
Within these pages, you’ll discover…
The Mediocrity Principle. Scientific evidence that mediocre performance is humanity's default and your cosmic birthright. Imagine how amazing you’ll feel once the oppressive weight of overachievement is finally lifted from your shoulders.
The 5 or 6 Destructive Beliefs Preventing You from Achieving Success, Happiness, and Love. Subconscious, self-sabotaging thinking, like Try harder... Dream bigger... and You can do anything you put your mind to. Minacious notions that waste your valuable time while setting you up for ultimate failure.
The Five Pillars of an Adequate Life. EZ-to-understand, even EZer-to-master principles for a more realistically attainable life of success, happiness, and love, built on a foundation of not quitting… but not trying too hard either. With these pillars, you'll understand the complete folly in chasing that cryptozoological creature known as "the perfect life." It's exhausting, excruciating, and pointless.
And there’s more—much more!
Aim for the Middle is your wake-up call with a snooze button. If you’re willing to do less than it takes to create a life that’s good enough, you’ll achieve dreams below your wildest expectations. So c’mon—give it a shot. What’ve you got to lose? I mean, you already bought the book.
You have a rendezvous with mediocrity!
