Living With the Lus: THIS AND THAT

Friday, June 13, 2014

THIS AND THAT

You know that adage that says you have to put in the time at something in order to get really good at it? I buy it. You’ve heard about Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 Hour Rule”, right? He claims that the key to success in any field Is to practice a specific task for about 10,000 hours. It’s from his book, “Outliers”, in which he says that success is due to a myriad of different factors. One of those factors is the environment you were born into and the opportunities and access you are given over the span of your life. But in addition, you need to put in those 10,000 hours in order to become really good at a particular thing. He uses Bill Gates as an example; Gates had access to a computer during a time when they were not common. But he also spent 10,000 hours programming on it.

I haven’t actually read the book, I just have read a bunch of different articles about it and I took away from it what I needed, which is that 1) I have access to many resources and 2) I’m ready and willing to log in to 10,000 hours to get good at a few particular things. (By the way, if you were about to do the math, that’s 10 years of 20 hours of work per week.) I’m not actually counting, and I don’t necessarily believe 10,000 is the magic number, but I absolutely believe that you have to put in the leg work and time to get good at something. One of those things that I want to get good at is writing. That may be one out of the many (many) reasons why I keep this blog. I want to have the practice and the impetus to keep writing. The truth of the matter is that I would be writing no matter what; whether it be in a notebook, a Gmail draft or scribbles on scraps of paper, it’s just what I do, but I trying to be more pointed about it. I also am pining and working in hopes of adept at photography. It’s not really for any particular purpose or end goal; it’s just that I get so much dang satisfaction out of it and I have these visions in my head that I want to play out. As I’m putting all this down, I’m also realizing that there is something inherently awesome about working towards becoming good at something creative. I just asked myself the question, “If I had a genie in front of me, would I make the wish that I would instantly be excellent at writing? Or taking photographs?” And my answer was, “NO WAY!” The idea of instantly becoming an expert writer or photographer completely takes the joy out of what it is about these things that I love so much. The process of creating and incrementally improving and growing is such a joy, despite the inevitable struggles and self-doubt that also pop up along the way.

I’m hoping that it’s not everything that it takes that long to get good at. Because there are some things that I am hoping to get savvy at way before that many hours. Like, I want to get really good at braiding hair. I want to get excellent at making pie dough, and cocktails. I want to get good at pull-ups. By that I mean, I want to be able to do a pull-up (unassisted). I would love to get good at sewing. What do you want to get good at? I hope you’re naming them and more importantly, doing them.

Not really related to anything else I’ve been saying up there, but here are some disparate photos from my iPhone from this past week. Sometimes, when I’m feeling fancy, orrr pummeled by the week, I will take Sloane and myself out to the local wine shop on our way home from work and daycare on Friday. They have a free wine tasting there every Friday and they lay out crackers and cheese to go with the wine. Sloane gets crackers, Mommy gets wine. Sloane took these photos of me (and my knees) outside of the shop.

June has been the perfect month to eat outdoors. Roasted broccoli has been our go-to vegetable as of late; in this case, we roasted them and ate it straight from the pan.