Cook the Beans
The Turning Feral Journal - Day 26
Day 26 - It takes time to get good at things. Famously, Malcolm Gladwell came up with the 10,000 hour rule as a guideline for becoming proficient at a particular “thing.” So in order to become an expert at say, sharpening knives, you need to spend at least 10,000 hours honing your skills with solid practice. Excessive? Maybe. But the point remains… you need to spend time, and lots of it, in order to be proficient at your craft(s).
But, what does this mean for people like me (and those who read this journal) who are trying to tackle so many different “new” things all at once? Well, it frankly means that we are going to suck at all of those different things for a long time. Because for people trying to make up for a lifetime of millennial malaise, we are starting the clock at zero on everything from tool/vehicle maintenance, house repairs, livestock handling, hunting, trapping, etc., etc…
And seeing as we live in a world of instant gratification and the online sources we do go to learn more about each of these topics are experts with 10,000 plus hours of experience, it can be extremely frustrating and demoralizing. Which is why I adopted a saying from an old jiu jitsu coach, “You have to cook the beans.” You see, when you cook traditional beans you have to let them soak for hours before cooking them, otherwise you end up with something that could chip your tooth.
The concept of “cooking the beans” is fitting because with so many interest and skill gaps, it’s impossible to dedicate enough time each day to become an expert, quickly. So, you have to be ok with soaking all of your “beans” and letting them slowly become tender and cookable over a much longer timeline. So, don’t let the experts get you down, you will get there and will arrive with a broad skill set on your own timeline!
Daily Prompt: Where can you “cook the beans” in your life? Are there areas where you have put too much pressure on yourself to be an “expert” too quickly? How can you rectify that?:
Motivational Passage:
To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.
-Socrates
Rewilding Action: Journaling has been an important part of my knowledge retention path for many years. As my pursuits moved outdoors, so did the medium in which I started to capture my thoughts and personal feedback… On my trapline I now capture notes in a waterproof notebook using a waterproof pen. These can come in handy if you are going to be out and about in unpredictable weather and still want to capture ideas to revisit later. The brand I have used the most is Rite in the Rain, but I am sure others exist, too. Pick one up and start jotting down ways to improve your bean cookin’ wherever you are at.
Great post. One of the things that people get wrong about Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule is that he was talking about the time it takes to become the best at something. We can become proficient in a much shorter amount of time. The key is identifying how proficient we need to be at each skill and if, like you and me, we are trying to develop many new skills, we need to prioritize and determine how good is good enough.