The Joys of Mastery

It occurred to me this morning that when I wrote yesterday about repeating some action or effort you once took that was so hard the first time, I was really talking about the Joys of Mastery. Just about the only things we are born knowing how to do are eat sleep breathe, and basic bodily functions that are not yet under our control. Actually even eating sleeping and breathing are things we learn to master later. Earlier they are just “there” under the control of the autonomic nervous system. Think about all the things you do in a day that are done on automatic pilot—in other words, you don’t have to consciously think about them. From the moment we arise in the morning, we go to the bathroom, something we learned to control when our mothers thought we were ready to do so. We talk to our spouse or child, another learned behavior that we mastered at a very young age, dress ourselves, which I’ll remind you we took over the job from Mom or nanny or whoever, walk through the house. Walking is a trial and error experience that we work at until we get it right. And from that we move on to running and jumping and playing games. Think of how masterful you are that you not only know how to do these things, but you have Mastery. Unfortunately, war, accidents, or trauma sometimes intrude on our mastery of a skill, and it has to be learned all over again, but the brain is a marvelous place that allows new pathways to be built when something causes an established pathway to close down. We get so good at things and sometimes we do them so on automatic pilot, that we forget to pay attention to what we are doing, hence, the idiots who text while driving. While we can drive along and listen to the radio or a book, we have to be ever vigilant and prepared to slow down or stop. Just because it’s easy and it feels as if we have mastered all the little nuances of the activity, it doesn’t mean that we can be ‘out to lunch’ when we are doing it. I seem to have slipped off the track here for a moment, because what I really wanted to say today is very much the way I want to live my life, and if you try it, you will love living yours. Appreciate all the things you have mastered in your life, all the things that we all come to take for granted. Everyone masters different life skills, corresponding to what their life is like, but we all master the basics, talking, walking, etc. If you grew up on a farm, you might notice the weather far more than if you grew up in the desert. If your life was in the city, you might know how to hail a cab, or jump on a cable car or make the subway. If you lost a parent early in life you learned skills that others might not have, and the same if you lived in a place where war touched your life. As human beings, we have such elasticity, such adaptability, such amazing powers of Mastery. So take some time to appreciate all the things you know, all the things you are, and all the possibilities out there of things you can learn and master. And then, Appreciate what an amazing creature you are, and bask in the Joys of Mastery.