When I start something I have a vision in my head of what an expert result looks like. My beginner’s efforts are embarrassing.
In little ways what is happening now is that I’m willing to start. Period. I’m willing to look at my first efforts and realize that they’re bad but they will evolve to better, quickly. And I look forward to seeing that evolution unfold.
It happens when I write something. It starts off bad and I know it’s bad, but as it goes along it gets better. Magically. It’s almost as if I didn’t know how to think or express myself, but the effort of trying to think and express myself actually brings about that result.
In a roundabout way I’m saying that I like experiencing the journey from noob to competent. I like feeling the progression of building skills and knowledge. Something was not there. Then it was.
From competent to mastery? That’s a chasm that I have only bridged a couple of times. Put down your head for 25 years and work. That’s the only thing I can say about mastery. Shut up with your 10,000 hours. And even mastery is only a bare beginning.
I have more mastery to discover within me. Let’s trudge fearlessly to the next one — the most interesting journey of all so far, because it involves hand-to-hand combat with self. Not a body of knowledge, not a technical skill, not a profession. Self.
With luck, a specific course of action I have embarked on this week will lead me to a peaceful co-existence with self.
But in the meantime, reaching journeyman status is fine. We are all Privates in this Army.