There's an apocryphal story that--if I'm remembering correctly--has Warren Buffet giving his driver or pilot life advice. The pilot/driver wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life, and Warren said write down a list of the top 25 goals/wishes he'd like to achieve, then pick out the top 5. Then, consciously ignore all the rest. The idea being if you try and do to many things you end up finishing none.
I did that a week ago in hopes of clarifying my goals and got a good start, but did that instead of writing a blog post, apparently, since I am once again writing last weeks post today (as well as today's post) ... But that might have been two weeks ago? Time blurs together. Someone asked me on Monday how Friday went, and all I could come up with was, "I don't remember. I guess fine?" When things reach a certain degree of overwhelm, there are less resources to reckon time with.
Someone earlier this week, who didn't know me that well, implied that they thought I should be able to find 3 hours in my weekend to catch up on an online course I'm taking, and I became a bit indignant. But looking back at my weekend, I guess the fact of the matter is I did have that time. That and time to spare. Saturday was spend in almost entirely unproductive activities. Part of this, perhaps the main part, was that Late late Friday night was spend it entirely unproductive activities (after I got back from games night with friends. Games night I consider highly productive in that it's deeply recharging, giving me play and deep chill time with some of my best friends.)
Me and my girlfriend are having some discipline issues with one of her cats, who has decided getting up on the counter and chowing down on whatever food is there is a great idea, despite frequently being squirted for doing so. But I suppose I can relate. Sometimes, because of patterns, because of the environment, because of who knows what, we find it almost irresistible to do things we know we shouldn't. I've read a lot of science (or, books that synthesize the science into layperson explanations) and it gives you sympathy for how addictive various things in our modern world can be, and how hard it can be to change those habits.
So you do them, and then get spritzed with a water bottle. Or feel bad the next day when you didn't get good sleep. On the plus side I did find a game that scratched my card-game itch. Hearthstone is kind of amazing. There are a million digital card games out there, but somehow Blizzard just does things better than anyone else. There's a certain amount of care that goes into their products. They are really thinking about the person who will be playing, and how to make the experience really fun for them. Whatever the medium, I always respect mastery or great skill. I aspire to have that some day.
There is a book by Cal Newport called, "So Good they Can't Ignore You" where he says beefing up your skills is much more important to job satisfaction than "Following your Passion." The title is taken from a Steve Martin quote, the idea being, just get so good they can't ignore you and you'll never be out of work. I think Martin had a passion for what he was doing as well, but the fact of the matter is there are lots of people with passion for something, but it's those that take the time, persistent effort, sweat and practice to become excellent, that get to do what they love for a living.
I think there is an element of matching job to person, where, if you want to master something, your going to be doing it a lot, so you'd better love practicing doing it for its own sake, or you'll never last. That's Angela Duckworth's book, "Grit" in a nutshell. "Grit" is passion and perseverance. Not the fireworks passion, but the steady burn, welding torch passion that you consciously hone through the ho-hum parts of the journey as well as the exciting bits. Hopefully making much of the ho-hum interesting in it's own right.
At the same time I don't think it's all blood and tears, I think the people who get really good at things, are practicing because they like practicing, even though it's hard and not flashy. That's really where you want to be, I theorize. Deliberate practice (the secret sauce to mastery) is not easy or fast, and so few people do it consistently. So if you can get yourself to be one of the people who does, you get your pick of jobs in your field. It's like the ultimate meta-skill for all skills.
Anyhoo, enough of this week-old post, time to write a quick new one.
No comments:
Post a Comment