How do you to Carnegie Hall?
C.E. Grundler
Conventional wisdom tells that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to master something. The concept known as the 10,000 Hour Rule contends that success is a direct result of relentless practice. It doesn’t matter what the pursuit, be it engineering, music, writing, chess, painting, taking over the world. It’s simple: the more time you put into something, the more likely it is you’ll eventually get better at it, and with a little luck, succeed. Don’t expect success after a week, and don’t throw in the towel when it still isn’t easy down the road. Give it time, and don’t give up.
But 10,000 hours? How did they come up with that number? Was someone actually tracking all that time? And how much time is that, in days and seasons and years? Does a pop-up timer go off, or maybe a big apple rises up, and fireworks go off, like when the Mets win. And that’s not accounting for the variations in mastery. I’ve seen people with no training whatsoever sit at a piano and play the most magnificent music by ear. I’d imagine their time/mastery curve would be far shorter, as opposed to a tone-deaf individual with zero rhythm, such as myself. I’d also like to imagine by time I pass the 10K mark, I might be able to knock out a half-way tolerable rendition of ‘Chopsticks’.
But that 10K is the number I keep hearing? WHAT is 10K, really? By the numbers, we’re looking at 416 days. Yup. One year, 7 weeks, 2 days, 10 hours, and 11 minutes, to be specific. Hmmm. That doesn’t sound so bad. So why aren’t we all masters of the universe by now? Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve yet to master the whole working 24/7 thing, so I guess that’s my excuse. It’s nice to eat and sleep occasionally. So let’s see how it looks if we break it down to forty-hour weeks. 10,000 divided by 40 leaves us 250 weeks to our Mastery degrees, or 4.8 years. I’ll just round that up to an even 5 for holidays and sick-days.
Okay, so that works on paper, but you could say the same thing about the Chevette, and you don’t see too many of them on the roads…even when they were new. But it is safe to say if you apply yourself to anything you want and truly put in the time, you will be better for it. Theoretically, you could ‘master’ two things every decade, and every so often I read of someone who lived that way, as though they wouldn’t let a moment slip through their fingers without putting it to good use. Those hours and days and years will pass one way or another, and when they’re gone, you don’t get them back.
As for me, I’m still clocking my hours, mastering this writing thing, and it’s time to punch back in. Catch you all next week — or in 168 hours, whichever comes first.
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