18 Comments
User's avatar
Rick Lewis's avatar

I couldn't read this silently. Half way through I started reading aloud to my wife and we both sat here with our jaws hanging open while mediocrity was eloquently slain on the page.

Expand full comment
aishwarya's avatar

omg i wrote the second half and reading this makes me emotional

Expand full comment
Amber Theurer's avatar

I second Aish on the emotions flooding through ... :')

Expand full comment
Alyson's avatar

Two of my faves dropping absolutely wisdom!! So timely, probably for everyone in this space. Will be saving and reading again and again. BESOS

Expand full comment
Amber Theurer's avatar

Awwww mi amor....you know you know you know the vibes. Besos <3

Expand full comment
Kuriakin Zeng's avatar

Amber, losing a contract like that just sucks. It’s one of those punches that makes your stomach drop, and you can’t stop replaying it in your head, thinking about what you could’ve done differently. I’d be losing my mind honestly.

But you! You turned all of that into this essay. It’s proof you can dance in the rain, even when every fiber of your being was hoping for sunshine.

Funny thing - I published a note about not lowering our expectations, a few moments before your essay came in. I was reserving it for today but had this unshakable urge to send it out yesterday instead. So your essay felt like the other half of a conversation I didn’t even know I was having.

Let’s start an alliance against mediocrity (preferably one where we leave dizzy, not safe)

Expand full comment
Amber Theurer's avatar

EEEEP! Movement against mediocrity .... dancing in community outside of our comfort zone somehow makes it the right amount of safe, ya?

Happy to get to do it together.

Expand full comment
Matt Yao's avatar

ya yeet

Expand full comment
Rachel Parker's avatar

Amber, this really captures something true about the challenge of choosing an uncertain path. Love how you frame the mediocrity trap—those 'bad-but-not-too-bad' situations that keep us in their orbit with their comfortable furniture of predictability. Your distinction between avoiding uncertainty and choosing what we're willing to be uncertain about really made me think. Thank you for sharing this.

Expand full comment
Amber Theurer's avatar

Thank you for reading and resonating. I so appreciate your reflections along the way - only more validation that this is something that we all feel...but also something that ultimately passing...and revisits...and passes... haha

Expand full comment
Alex Michael's avatar

This is a banger. Essential reading for anyone wanting to live beyond mediocrity. And really timely for me, as on Sunday I got my own version of the contract-not-going-through-email.

Keep dancing in the uncertainty and doing your thing.

Expand full comment
Amber Theurer's avatar

The universe really out here like, "Gonna chase your dreams this year or WHAT?"

We're in it together. 🧚‍♀️

Expand full comment
mivin's avatar

photos look nothing like you both however after reading, I saw you both through them without fail - great to 👀 Amber and Aishwarya in virtual thriving ✨️

Expand full comment
Amber Theurer's avatar

What do you mean? These are *absolutely* Aish and I??? haha I hope genAI mivin is also #living 🫀

Expand full comment
The Story of Your Voice's avatar

Amber, I really enjoyed your piece. You really captured the up and down, the high and lows of moving through life and being self determined. Thank you for highlighting the resiliency it takes to believe that the journey you want to walk is the journey that you have to walk.

may you walk on your journey and do so with joy

Expand full comment
Amber Theurer's avatar

William!! If there's one thing that's certain about the journey of uncertainty, it's that we're all on it together. :)

Expand full comment
CansaFis Foote's avatar

…we happen to the world…the world happens to us…our happenings happen together…pretty sure this is how people become happy…

Expand full comment
Amber Theurer's avatar

traveling the world to come back to each other!!!

Expand full comment