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10,000 Hours
In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers suggested that anyone can develop world-class expertise at any skill by dedicating 10,000 hours to practicing it. While not all experts agreed with his theory, it does support the age-old adage that practice makes perfect. So, now that we’re considering committing the 10,000 hours, the bigger question is how do we decide that we will practice? You may think, what a minute, I didn’t commit to practicing anything! But consider the idea a little more broadly, where we spend our time is where we are practicing already. To that way of thinking, we are all practicing something. What is it we are choosing to perfect? There…
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YOLO
In the last few decades, the idea that “you can have it all” has grown in popularity for both women and men. Successful career…check. Amazing family…check. Community involvement…check. Multiple degrees…check. Travel the world. Write a book. Start an organic farming co-op. Foster rescue animals. Knit homemade Christmas gifts…check, check, check! But is accurate to say we can have it all? We all have to make choices. Instead of “you can have it all” perhaps we should be saying “anything’s possible”. Except, even then, there are limits…limits to our personal discipline and time, and then there’s that pesky need for sleep. So perhaps a truer statement would be “you can have it all…just not at the same time”.…
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Aura of Invincibility
Tenure. Time in grade. Seniority. No matter how you frame it, people attribute value to the passage of time. There is a perception that people who have been “at it for a while” know the ropes. This is true in settings other than the office. In church, they’re known as “elders”. In AA meetings, they’re referred to as “oldtimers”. Regardless of the moniker, time in grade denotes a certain cachet. The most prevalent is wisdom. While time often rewards us with experience and in turn, experience with learning, time doesn’t eliminate the trials of life. Time doesn’t erase our fear and ego. It doesn’t legitimize self-sufficiency or infallibility. Time makes us no less susceptible to…
