Posted on by Rugged Troubador

Practice is not always necessary.

If I am perfectly happy with my skills I already have, and am confident I can retain them without practicing, there is no need for me to practice.

If I find more joy resonating in what I’ve already accumulated, then the more important thing for me and for the world might be for me to start “being myself.”

I can “be myself” (innovate) purely and truly only if I am 100% OK with the skills and the information I have at hand. What this means is that I have an Inner Life that is at such a high vibration that whatever it is that I normally practice (piano, Portuguese, parasailing) resonates with that vibration.

Frequently, to be maintained, this Inner Life requires more than just the vibration. It also requires engaging with Life and with Higher Consciousness on many different levels and in many different areas. These could be anything from practicing yoga to eating blueberry pancakes.

So, as it turns out, “being myself” requires, for most of us, more than just “being.” It requires “acting.” It requires conscious and deliberate steps towards the things that makes us tick. Sometimes part of this is Practice, and sometimes it isn’t.

If we Act in the right way, we can start get closer to who we really are and what we can offer the world.

Posted on by Rugged Troubador

Information vs. Innovation

Real innovation comes from having the courage to sound like yourself. There’s a catch, though. Part of sounding like yourself is knowing what “you” sounds like. And you can’t know that until you listen to a few Others who already know what they sound like.

I’ve always been kind of envious of those who seem to be really good at assimilating bits and pieces of these Others. I guess that’s mostly because I always run into cats who seem to have more of a knack for assimilating than I do.

I’ve done a bit of assimilating, and I’m sure I’ll do more. But right now what intrigues me is the idea of working with what I’ve got. In other words, sounding more like myself.

It can be all too easy to have a hard time finding out what you sound like because you’re so concerned with properly sounding like someone else. As far as I can see, the only antidote for that is stopping acquiring more information – getting back to a Space inside of us that is uniquely ours.

I imagine it would go in a Cycle: Learn, Forget, Learn, Forget, Learn, Forget. The more complex the task, the more there is to learn – and therefore, of course, the more there is to forget.

Posted on by Rugged Troubador

Should You Quit Your Job?

In Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest For Work You Love, he provides an algorithm to be used in order to find out whether you should quit your job. I’m quoting from memory:

There are three criteria:

  1. You really hate the people you work with.
  2. You feel that the job is not helping people or doing anything good for the world.
  3. There is no room for innovation.

The first criterion is more or less black and white – you either do or you don’t hate the people you work with. The second two are far more subjective. Who’s to say if the world is being made a better place? And as far as innovation goes, are we talking within the confines of the job itself, or innovation outside of the workplace as well?

Most people aren’t interested in the second two criteria. They’re most likely already good at their job, or they don’t have any other source of income on which to fall back. But for those of us who are, it might benefit us to contemplate them if we’re not entirely certain that our current jobs will hold much promise in the long run.