In Praise of Mediocrity
Lorraine Forrest-Turner
How would you feel if someone described your work as mediocre? Hurt? Insulted? Angry? Originating from the Latin ‘medius’ (meaning ‘middle’) and ‘ocris’ (meaning ‘rugged mountain’), ‘mediocre’ has come to mean ‘middling, ordinary, unexceptional, run-of-the-mill, commonplace, not very good’. Even at its best, we consider ‘mediocre’ to mean ‘average’. But is being average so terrible? What if Good Enough was a Good Thing? What if being mediocre at many things was actually better than being brilliant at something?

About the Speaker
Lorraine Forrest-Turner
Lorraine Forrest-Turner has spent over 50 years being mediocre at most things, awful at others, and damned good at a few.