Ten Thousand Hours or Your Life

I've been reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success, and I've been thinking a lot about the "ten thousand hour rule." It occurred to me to ask: is it actually possible for what I might call a normal person to achieve ten thousand hours?

Here's a synopsis of me: I work full time and have a considerable commute (courtesy the Bay Area). I have a six-year-old son and a fiancé. I also co-own a business and work on it occasionally. I also have the standard human needs to drink water, eat food, bathe and sleep. Normal or not, I think my life represents some standard commitments that adults with family have.

Now, to the rule. For anyone who hasn't heard about it, Gladwell dissects the elements of success, going far beyond the usual rags-to-riches story often told around the successful people. One of those elements is the fact that prior to making it big, each outlier accumulated at least ten thousand hours in his/her art or craft. This seems to be some magic number for human brains to become experts in music, computer science, law, art, sports – you name it. 

But let's face it. Ten thousand hours is a LOT of time. Or is it?

A standard work year contains some 2,000 hours (8 hours a day x 50 weeks in a year). That means if one works at one's job in a focused, concentrated way for at least five years, one can accumulate ten thousand hours. But what if you want to venture out into something that's not your day job, like many of us do. You want to do art or writing or cooking or auto mechanics. How much time would it take to become an expert if you have a day job?

To answer my question, I created a spreadsheet and a chart. There are some realities to face in the path toward an expert state. One limitation is that one could be limited to the number of spare hours in a week. Another limitation is that one has a limited chronology within which to achieve an expert state. To demonstrate, here are some numbers:

• If you had 1 hour per week to spend on a craft, it would take you over 80 years to accumulate ten thousand hours.
• If you wanted to achieve expert state within 10 years, you would need to allocate at least 16 hours per week on a craft – equivalent to a part-time job.

This poses some interesting questions for life. I’m in my thirties, and having the big four-oh right around the corner creates some clarity.  Let’s say I wanted to become a pottery artist superstar, and I started now.  It would take me till I retire, to get those ten thousand hours. And it causes one to pause and think about the price of an expert state and success.

I’ve always wanted to write and speak for a living. Perhaps I need to join something like five toastmaster clubs or forsake the inclination to pay rent for a few years. The trouble for me is that as an introvert, I get so little time to myself as it is. For me, dedicating more time to speaking and writing skills could very well mean my sanity (and the safety of my loved ones). Hm. Time to ponder. 

10 Things I Envy of Other People

I like trying out new ideas and looking for the rarer of perspectives.  That usually pushes me in the direction of provocateur.  I had it in my head today to write a list of what I'm jealous about in contrast with the innumerable "what I'm thankful for" lists out there.  But then it occurred to me to ask: what's the difference between jealousy and envy?

If you ever wondered, this article is great at explaining it.  So let me correct myself.

I've set out to write a list of what I'm envious of.  Because with all the urging to keep things positive on the interwebs, sometimes you just want to get a few things off your chest.

10 Things I Envy of Other People

1. People with more than one child.  I always wanted more than one.
2. Folks in the Bay Area who've been able to buy a house, whether their parents helped them or they simply make ungodly amounts of money.  I've moved something like 9 times in the past 13 years.  I'm a little road weary.
3. Those freakin' Silicon Valley 20-somethings who cash out on their startups' IPO, because those people can really believe in dreams and breakthroughs and all things aspirational.  They're living the dream that only one in 500 million can live, but still carry the delusion that it's hard work and smarts instead of luck that pays off.
4. Gals who learned how to manage their weight early in life, as I struggle to understand food and drink and exercise in my later 30s.  (I was a skinny girl in my youth, and now I'm a fattish girl in my adulthood.)
5. People who really know how to write.  And I don't mean people who have the skill, but people who have the discipline to do it every day, rain or shine, elation or depression, fact or fiction, truth or dare.
6. Folks who can draw or paint or sculpt.  I'm such a visual person, a visual thinker, that it maddens me that words and shapes are basically my only tools.
7. (only sometimes)  People with little ambition.  Because when you do have ambition, like me, life is fraught with this constant drive to keep scanning the horizon for what's next, what's better.  It makes being present a whole lot harder.
8. Couples whose marriages have lasted.  Mine died a few years ago, and although I intend to join the married couple club again in the future, divorce makes life seem stranger and less certain.
9. I envy, or maybe it's more like miss, my 20-something self.  Life looked so much more amazing, chalk full of possibility and wonder.  I miss being able to revel in the ideas of things that could be, rather than contending with how the things really are.  Sometimes delusion is beautiful.
10. People who can drink caffeine in the late afternoon and sleep at night.  I love tea, a proper cup, with freshly boiled water and sugar and milk.  And it would be lovely to actually take tea at tea time (4pm)!

Well.  I hope this has been enjoyable.  What are YOU envious of?

Working Jane

So I started my own business last year.  You can check it out - it's cool!  www.vinyl-unlimited.com. We do awesome decals, t-shirts and other random stuff our machinery will do that people will pay for.

I also got another awesome job this year, as the marketing manager of an up-scale professional services firm.  The salary is pretty awesome.  My mentors and colleagues are awesome-er.

And what both of these mean is that I've checked off two major life goals in one year.  I started that business.  I broke that 6-figure salary ceiling I kept bumping up against.  TWO, count them.  TWO life goals in ONE year.  I've never been so accomplished.

And life is... hard.  Business finances are a constant concern as we endure the burn-in stage of every startup without angel backing.  Life is full of work, work, work, as I cycle through from one job to the other to home to mommy-dom to stolen moments of alone time to poignant and growth-filled minutes with my honey bun.  I've gained weight.  Weekends are about cramming as much rest into two days as possible.  I've had to manage the anxiety that comes with the month-to-month figures in the bank accounts.  I've learned how one day can start with amazing possibilities and end in the pits of despair.  I've experienced how sometimes all it takes is a quick conversation with a potential client, friend or fellow marketer or entrepreneur to lift one's spirits and gather my gumption to get back on that horse.

And people.  People are more generous, lazy, caring, shallow, encouraging, flaky, strong, weak, and everything in between than I've ever known them to be.  And this includes myself.

As much as I would never give up my projects, my commitments to family and friends (and my desire to be thinner), I would never say that all this isn't worthwhile.  It is.  I wouldn't say it's easy.  It's not.  I wouldn't say it's all rewarding, because it isn't yet.

The one thing I will say is...

...I need some more FUN in my life!  All work and no play makes Jane a dull girl.

One in front of the other

Endurance is one of those things they don’t talk about much.  They should.  It’s essential.  Most of humanity survives, I’m sure, because of our ability to endure.  In fact, physically our evolutionary advantage resided mainly in our ability to do long-distance, endurance running (and our ability to sweat, of course).  Emotionally, I’m never sure how survivors of trafficking, rape and violence make it – but we seem to do so. 

Endurance is a vastly challenging discipline of a second-by-second occupation of the mind and body.  It’s about being who we really are, where we really are – even if we’re not completely all there, even.  It’s about wasting time, sometimes.  It’s about taking mental pictures and trying to remember a single moment.  It’s about letting one’s mind wander.  It’s about remembering the past, good or bad.  It’s about seeking the blessings of work, busyness, company, physical comfort, food and drink, and sometimes drugs.  It’s about feeling your loneliness sometimes, even though it might tempt you into a black hole of sadness.  It’s about not giving in to easy feelings of blame, anger, self-pity, scorn, spite and impatience.  It’s about doing what you can to keep your feet moving.  One foot in front of the other. 

It’s about seeking life.

For every moment we can’t move, I’m convinced we die a little.  Or perhaps the act of dying a little stops our steps.  And those are the moments when grief is present, all around, surrounding like a terrible, blanketing, dull yet piercing fog.  Clouding our minds and words and deeds, until we break the spell with weeping.  And our steps become tears, so that it is all about one tear after another.  And when the tears are spent, our walking resumes with steps.  One foot in front of the other.

The Deva Station

My last sharing was of Easter, of birth and joy.  That is one side of resurrection.  The other side is death and dying. 

A few months ago, my marriage died.  I realize now that it was on a lot of machinery to keep it alive.  Heart pumping machines and things that go "blip!"  But now its been laid to rest, like a cancer fighter, and we are all contemplating its death, meaning, and aftermath.

I'm a part of a group of several millions strong, as far as we can tell, of "straight spouses."  We are the heterosexual spouses of mixed-orientation marriages, whether the other spouse is gay, bisexual or transgender.  My ex-husband is bisexual, a thing we knew since before the beginning, before we were even friends.  And that is a kind of grace, really.  Having known from the beginning didn't help us stay together, but it does help with this aftermath, this devastation.

We knew for forever that my ex was attracted to men, but when we got married, that didn't matter.  The conservative Christian ex-gay movement was in full swing at the time, full of promises of overcoming and change, and we were in our 20s.  You know how the world looks when you're in your 20s; it's simply waiting for you to take it over.  And that's how we felt, then.  We would be unique, and we would be special.  We would be lucky and beat the odds.

I suppose we were indeed lucky and special, and we did beat the odds technically.  But we didn't beat reality.  The stories that many straight spouses tell are so often full of deceit, betrayal, disease, and cataclysmic denial / destruction.  Our story is less dramatic.  There was no betrayal, no dishonesty, no second life I didn't know about, no diseases that were precursors to uncovering the truth, no walking in on the spouse with someone else.  We have an awesome child together (and too bad we didn't push out a second one, because the DNA mixture turned out great!), and we don't hate each others' guts.  We still look out for each other, even now that we're dating other people.

But still.  It is de-va-sta-tion.  It's loss and a cause to question a lot of the past decade.   I'm 34, and supposed to be beginning that fore-mentioend world conquest.  But instead, I'm picking up pieces of a very large shattered vessel.  And cutting my fingers on the shards every now and then, while simultaneously trying to really live.

One thing I know.  This will NOT become a pity party.  I don't have time to be a diva.  This will simply be deva-station, not a diva-station.

Easter

I'm celebrating the night before Easter with depression and a gin and tonic.  Looks like the amount we owe for taxes this year is rather astronomical.  Which depressed us utterly.  How did we come to owe so much?  It's hard to understand how two established professionals with a single child who live modestly can feel so financially behind in life.  It's going to take us forever to pay off that educational and consumer debt and build a savings.

So, enough about that.

Tomorrow, with the celebration of family and spring and (for some) the miraculous Resurrection, my Spring will officially start.  I will wear a colorful dress, clad my son in a pastel green dress shirt, and with my husband join a few very dear friends for a restaurant brunch. This is the first Easter in a long time I will not be celebrating with blood family and a huge food production at home.  Instead, I will be celebrating effortlessly with some family of the heart and mind.  And for a religious type, and ironically, I will be celebrating a highly spiritual day with some very fine atheist skeptics.

These skeptics, which include my husband and the two friends, are so very dear to my heart.  Of the four of us, I'm the only religious type to stay religious.  The rest are religious types turned atheist.  Their reasons are varied, profound, convicting and honest.  And although it may be bewildering for some to look at me, an intellectual, and hear me say that I'm still religious, I have indeed kept my faith throughout everything.  Through the disappointment of how nasty and boring church people really are.  Through the deconversion experience my husband went through a few years ago, which tore my heart out and undid me.  Through every day's NPR broadcast of famine, war, strife, injustice and bigotry.

But why?  Why am I able to maintain a grasp on my spirituality while the other three didn't?  I don't know.  But right here and now, I would like to defend them - and me - and vie for a view that all humans are spiritual, whether they are religious or anti-religious.  My dear friend, let's call him Bob, pointed out that there is something categorically different about the human response of awe and wonder to the universe.  Even religious things can be argued to have come from evolutionary need.  (I'm not sure I agree 100% on this, but this is a complex discussion in and of itself.)  But there is something unique, profound, and deeply affecting about looking into the stars (for example) and feeling... something.  Skeptics feel, and they feel deeply.  I know, because I'm married to one.  Skeptics are deeply misunderstood at this period in time, and that's unfortunate.  All I'd like to say today, in the midst of my gin buzz, is that they have hearts and minds both.  And tomorrow's brunch will be no less joy filled because they do not share my faith in a miracle.

I hope.

Shabbat Struggle

I'm a non-Jew trying to institute the practice Shabbat in my life, and it's hard.  Not because I can sing the typical song of modern woe about just being so busy all the time (though I am), but because for me work is comforting and life-giving.  And I have come to understand that Shabbat is about doing life-giving things.

Writing grocery lists or plotting out the next month's budget.  Cleaning the kitchen (sometimes) and sorting old clothes to go to Goodwill.  These things bring me satisfaction. And I'm not a codependent person; it's hard to explain, but I just really get a kick out of getting stuff done.

When I contemplate what a meaningful Shabbat is  - a 24 hour period of intentional stillness -  it's hard to parse work from rest.  To pare down to a minimal pattern of rest is sometimes like entering a recently moved-out house.  It's dirty and hollow, just barely echoing of what used to be so cheerful and full.  It reminds me of the First Testament episodes when particular characters would go into the wilderness (aka wild places, lonely places, places of non-cultivated land).  They would often go without food in their questing, but the stories record most of them finding something significant out there.  There is this extreme dichotomy of starvation and plenty in those stories, for although the people physically starve and thirst, those significant experiences they bring back with them become life markers, things that redefine their past, present and future.

I wonder what I will find.  My relationship with this emptiness is volatile.  Some weeks, I long for it and anticipate with joy.  Other times, I find myself, like today, longing for activity to bring solace to a patternless day.  One thing I've learned so far is that simply having fun isn't necessarily life-giving.  Too many video games and movies can make life grey instead of glorious.

Gosh this is hard work!

Just another blog, I guess. But it's mine!

I want to write.

When I tell my aspiration to people, they say, "Oh, you should start a blog."

Really?  Something in me resists the idea of blogging. I don't really read blogs, myself.  Why should other people read my blog?  Isn't there enough content out there and media overload?

Every morning, I get up, roll over and turn off the iPhone alarm.  Then I check email, the weather and the top stories on my BBC News app.  In the car I listen to a daily podcast on spiritual matters and then decide to listen to the news on the radio or not.  Next, work is all about emails, phone calls, meetings, deliverables.  And then back in the car for more radio news (or not).  Then home to try to clean, cook and have family time... while watching TV of course.

I mean, really.  For a mind that avoids being simply a consumer and tries to generate something, that's a hell of a lot of media I intake.

Well, maybe a blog is a way of pushing back, of breaking the pattern of intake with little output.  Hmm.  That's something I can live with, actually.  "Be generative." This was the advice one of my favorite professors received from his mentor, and it's a phrase that sticks with me.  Produce something.  Many somethings, hopefully.  Here's a start.  I shout back into the expanse that is the world and say, "Hey!  Just another blog, I guess.  But it's mine!"