If you’ve ever reluctantly attended a dinner party, you’ve probably heard of the theory of “10,000 Hours of Practice.” The popular folk theory is simple: once you have spent 10,000 hours practicing a skill or talent, you can consider yourself a master of it.
Watered down and tossed around by armchair experts and pseudoscientists, the heart of the idea frames mastery as a sort of clinical conquest, a validating achievement more so for its rigor than enjoyment. While it’s an oversimplification of the actual research it’s based on, I do think it’s a really poignant and useful summation of how most of us are taught the idea of value. The value of time, the value of thought, the value of people…
No one inherits the earth anymore. I see and feel the constant shadow of earning like a pall over us all. Earning is a sentence upon our existence, a constant battlefield of justifying our choices within the gift of a lifetime. The expenditure of time, of money, of energy, of emotion all have to have a solidified point. When does that then make the point of life, to die?
The other day a friend and I were discussing the 10,000 hours idea and they asked me if I had 10,000 hours logged in any one thing. The first activity that came to mind was my favorite one, reading. After running through the pastimes I engage in that require any measurable skill level, nothing else passed the test. My mind started running through the activities I’ve done most often and likely would accumulate to 10,000 hours. Watching movies with my dad. Cooking dinner. Sitting around with my friends. Going on walks. Chatting with cashiers. Daydreaming out the window. Showering.
I’m no master of anything but I am a recovered worshipper of end game. I now like the idea that my life might be a ball of yarn and not a knitted scarf. That god might have made me to meander around and wonder why he didn’t make sea water drinkable. I find meaning in making the same spaghetti recipe for the 8000th time and watering the plants. I can be at peace with another 75 years of that.
How much money have you cumulatively spent on the perfect birthday present? How much time have you spent caring for your body, brushing your teeth and sleeping? How many hours have you spent inside of an embrace? Most of us will spend years of our lives contributing this incredible life force to the world around us. Most of us are pouring our time and our spirit and our money and our energy into this wonderful fabric of joy. Most of us have spent thousands upon thousands of hours mastering love. And we might never stop to appreciate it.
The death of my dear father has wrought a such a complete metamorphosis of me, as such a monumental goodbye should. In my mourning, I exist in constant awe and loving haze of people’s shocking goodness. I think about the summation of a life, of what we can truly stack up to the heavens at the end. It is only joy, only love that I can think of so far. My only wish is that my father could have tallied up some more.
Please be gentle with yourself. Know that whatever shortcomings you hold over your own head, that they are false or forgivable. Know that the expenditure of your life has tremendous value to the people around you, to a degree immeasurable by hours or dollars or words. One way or another you will move on from this life a master of something. Let it be joy. Let it be love.
The Prompts
What activities have you spent 10,000 hours doing? How many of them feel done in service to yourself or others?
What activity on this list brings you the most joy?
What activity do you wish to add to this list that would bring you more joy?
Who do you spend most of your time with? What do love about the time you spend together?