Yes, I think it's partly a language issue. Technically (according to my Oxford Dictionary), the first meaning of "mediocre" is simply "of middling quality" but it has come to native English speakers to be overwhelmingly pejorative, synonymous with "poor" or "rubbish".
Lol, SuZir, I see you are not in the running for Domestic Goddess of the Year... And neither, of course, am I. Long time back I decided that what was important to me was quality of life over money, success and ambition - hence I do work I enjoy and am good at but have never had a career or much money to speak of. These things are subtle, though. I had always had this view of myself that I was anti-ambition, not concerned with status, etc, and was very surprised when a professional counsellor I saw last year for a few months said to me that, looking at my CV, I was clearly someone who had always been concerned with success. And perhaps it is true... I worked for a very prestigious organisation in the UK for a long time, I have published translations by some interesting and famous authors, I got the highest class of degree at university. I feel caught between middle class values of status and success, and spiritual values to do with quality of life, presence and giving oneself to what one does without looking at the end point or result. I had always thought I despised and turned my back on the middle class, status-driven background I came from and in fact... not so!
There may be more to all this than meets the eye. Usually is. And I should add that... despite my own conflicted attitude to this, I think the spiritual values of being rather than doing, the inherent value of the moment rather than the conceptual "end point" of ambition, status or success as judged from the world's point of view, are the ones that really give us life and heart and meaning. The status and achievement stuff feeds the ego but not the soul, Know what I mean?? 
