On: Permission to Suck

[thenomad]

This is a well-worn piece of advice, but it's well-worn for a reason - because it's incredibly valuable.

Observing a lot of my friends over a lot of years, I'm starting to suspect that the willingness to fail, and particularly to fail in public, is possibly the key differentiator for people who achieve impressive things.

(I'm currently learning a new skill myself. I was sucking very badly, I'm now just sucking pretty badly, and I'm enjoying the progress.)

[kadavy → thenomad]

> particularly to fail in public

This reminds me of when I learned to dance Salsa, and more recently, Tango.

It's a far more public failure than writing a blog post. Your body – the very thing that experiences the embarrassment of failure – is your instrument when dancing. To add insult to injury, you're failing in front of a never-ending stream of women.

But, thankfully, sucking is temporary and life is long.

EDIT: I'd like to add that life is much, much, better when you know how to dance.

[thenomad → kadavy]

Yes. I had a similar experience when I tried to learn to dance, some time ago. The "right, now go and dance freestyle with Random Attractive Woman #1" moment was particularly terrifying.

(I still can't dance very well.)

[ChuckMcM → thenomad]

The subtext of this message is to disassociate your sense of self from your abilities. There is a great quote in one of the "Little Bear" children's books that I would read to my kids when they were toddlers, Little Bear is explaining that he knows how to fly, but so far he has only mastered flying straight down.

It is hard to be 'Ok' with yourself not being able to do something you perceive as 'easy.' Or worse when someone you consider to be less talented than yourself is better at something than you, its hard to internalize that too. But all of these stem from the notion that your own value is determined by what you can do. That notion gets in the way of getting better at things.