Shopping malls depress me.

I work at a shopping mall every so often. For some reason it doesn’t depress me too much to work there — there’s always someone to talk to, always something to do — but I still get a little depressed watching some of my customers, especially the ones who look unhappy to be there.

Sure, a shopping mall represents American consumerism at its finest — but it isn’t my biggest disappointment with shopping malls. It seems like malls highlight the mediocrity in all of our lives. It separates us by who can afford better and those who can’t. It separates us by age and stages in our lives. It highlights mediocrity by these slight differences, even though everything is housed under a single roof. Mediocrity is one of my biggest fears; I am almost more afraid of mediocrity than I am of failure. I’m not quite sure what that says about me, but I’m sure that in one way or another, it labels me some kind of overachiever.

I don’t want to live a mediocre life. Of course I expect that I will get settled someday — you know, get married, have children, have a career and whatnot. But when I look into the faces of some of the women in the mall, the ones dragging around three kids and extra baby weight, I wonder if they’re happy.

It’s not so much the shallow aspect of getting older and having children that I’m worried about. I definitely don’t want to be the kind of woman who abandons looking her best because of several kids and a lack of motivation or time. It’s more because I feel that a woman who at least tries to look her best is telling the world that she values herself. I see plenty of women with several children, a husband, and a career who look great and are obviously happy. But I see many who aren’t.

I see women who look like they married because it seemed like the right thing to do. Or women who had kids because they were afraid that it was getting too late to do so. Or women who may have given up careers they loved to create a family life they never necessarily wanted, but were told by society that they had to fulfill. And yes, I do see plenty of women who probably gladly gave up a working life for little bundles of joy and a comfortable domestic life.

Whether I will become a hard-working career woman without a husband and children or a domestic goddess with a handful of little brats, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find something in-between. Either way, I hope I never settle for mediocrity. I hope I will be smart enough and listen to myself enough to know when I am risking settling for mediocrity. I don’t want to be the woman a cashier working at the mall notices as being unhappy in a mediocre life.

Postscript: Don’t get me wrong — this isn’t about a shallow concern of fashion. It’s about looking and feeling one’s best. It’s also about having the wisdom, luck, confidence, or whatever, to choose what is best for oneself — not necessarily what society says is best.