I was diagnosed in my thirties with a congenital condition. I decided "I need to start making more Bs if I'm ever going to get anywhere."
Twenty years later, I look back on my high expectations and realize that I was inculcated with them in childhood and also got a lot of support in childhood for being able to hit those performance marks in school. Growing up and leaving home meant I still had high expectations but I didn't necessarily have the support I needed to meet them.
I still have high standards but I'm more able to embrace ideas like "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly."
I'm happy at the moment with some of my accomplishments that probably don't look especially impressive to a lot of outsiders. Maybe they seem unpolished or not slick or not meeting some metric some outsider thinks matters. But they are meeting metrics I think matter, metrics that are hard to hit at all. And sometimes the fact that others think it's messy or second rate is a feature, not a bug, for my purposes.
Along these lines, I find it to be really important to have things that I do not do well, and that I do not optimize.
I tend to research and over-optimize every activity I do. Part of that is the fun I find in a hobby - I like to learn how to do it at the absolute best level (or how the professionals do it). But in doing so, I've found that I need to be OK not being the best, and when I don't hit that mark, improve my appreciation for those who can (and justify paying the professionals to do it).
An example is BBQ. I did tons of research, and there are setups that run $1,000s. One can spend days cooking, and months to procure and dry wood. It can range from fully manual to fully automated. I enjoy making good BBQ, but have accepted the fact that enjoying the research and the process is as important as the end product, and if the end product is great, then it's a bonus. Usually I can be consistently good, if not a little dry.
Same thing with cooking. I am not often restaurant quality with most of my dishes, because restaurants can use ingredients that don't make sense at home. But I try to aim for excellence, and when I miss, I get slightly better, and appreciate when someone serves a truly excellent meal.
Music is another thing. Few people know that John Mayer is playing a $15,000+ guitar [1] through a $7,000 pedal (among others) [2] hooked up to an amplifier that you cannot purchase unless the guy decides to make it for you, at which point it could be $150k or more [3]. Do I need that equipment to play guitar? Absolutely not, but learning about it was interesting and gave me a better appreciation for what I'm seeing on stage (and why spending $100 to see it and hear it in person may be worth it).
I also find starting with the extremes and dialing it back allows me to better decide the potential for a given hobby. If I don't do research, I may be running into pain that I didn't realize was easily fixed (e.g. getting a glove in golf).
That said, being OK with being OK is something I'm working on.
I'm training for a triathlon. I kinda suck at it. Taking me way longer than I had planned, much slower progress.
It's humbling, but also freeing too. It's ok to not optimize every aspect of life. It might take me a year of training to be able to finish a triathlon instead of 3 or 4 months, and I'll likely be in the back of the pack ... so what?
Hi, I’m terrible at navigating HN and I can’t remember my login in order to use anything besides my mobile to post here BUT I saw you replied to a comment of mine 2 months ago regarding CFTR modulators for treating cystic fibrosis. You concluded your response by saying the drugs are prohibitively expensive and I wanted to let you know that if you have any of the qualifying mutations (there are A LOT) you wouldn’t need to pay for the medications as there are funds and grants that will cover the costs of therapy for CF patients. If you want some more information I can try to get you the resources you need. I’ve seen these medications change lives and I hope they will be available for all mutations some day, perhaps yours is already.
An interesting reaction to what you're saying here for me is, I feel bad and have this bar while doing but when looking back I always see things in a positive way. I'm not sure where this comes from but trying to keep the Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." while doing a thing seems highly valuable to me. Thank you.
I have always struggled with doing things to a level demanded by nobody. Recently though I decided that I’m going to have a BMW ( the stupider and faster the better…) so I’ve found when I answer the question (“is what I’m doing going to get me towards my goal”)
Twenty years later, I look back on my high expectations and realize that I was inculcated with them in childhood and also got a lot of support in childhood for being able to hit those performance marks in school. Growing up and leaving home meant I still had high expectations but I didn't necessarily have the support I needed to meet them.
I still have high standards but I'm more able to embrace ideas like "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly."
I'm happy at the moment with some of my accomplishments that probably don't look especially impressive to a lot of outsiders. Maybe they seem unpolished or not slick or not meeting some metric some outsider thinks matters. But they are meeting metrics I think matter, metrics that are hard to hit at all. And sometimes the fact that others think it's messy or second rate is a feature, not a bug, for my purposes.