Love him or hate him? Whatever you think of him, one of the most remarkable things about Jeremy Clarkson is that he doesn’t do ‘middle ground’.
Don’t worry – I’m not going to talk about what happened in Yorkshire or the ins and outs of the BBC’s decision. What I am going to talk about is the danger of ‘middling’.
When someone asks “How are you?” how often do you hear:
- “not bad”
- “fair to middling”
- “mustn’t grumble”
- “fine”?
What’s all that about? Is that really how we want to spend our days? If we think like this all the time then our lives will drift aimlessly through the drab grey zone of middle ground. And wherever we end up it will be a million miles from feeling the best that we can be.
How about:
- “brilliant”
- “couldn’t be better”
- “great”
- or my personal favourite “top banana”?
And if we’re not feeling great then maybe it’s OK to say so. Because 2%ers don’t have super-glued smiles. They can have bad days too.
The difference with 2%ers is that they have to be bad days, not just a bad 10 minutes (which is what it takes for most people to write off a day) and that they get on with feeling rubbish so that they can work through it and bounce back.
So it’s OK to say “I’m having a really rubbish day” if you really are. But make sure it really is a rubbish day, and then find a way to get over it.
There’s no doubt that Jeremy Clarkson had a really rubbish day this week. Quite a few of them, to be fair. But life will move on and wherever you find him, it won’t be in the middle ground.
And if you need help shifting from middle ground help is at hand!
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