mastery | Life-Built Poems

The process-oriented mindset is one of several styles of moving to the beat of your own passion. Another name for it is “mastery.” One of the best breakdowns of the requirements and outcomes of pursuing “mastery” is the one the celebrated art curator Sarah Lewis delineates in her book, THE RISE: Creativity, the Gift of Failure and the Search for Mastery. This 2014 book is a fascinating exploration of the constant pursuit of excellence that is pretty much what distinguishes…

WORRY-BUSTING (Another Inner Peace Symptom)

Netta Comments 24 comments

Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): a disinclination to encourage catastrophic thinking and worrying. [Worst-case scenarios rarely happen. Allowing yourself to get caught up in mind-loops about them just makes you dizzy and paralyzes you.]

ASK THE STUPID QUESTION

Netta Comments 29 comments

I had a friend who won my admiration because his constant go-to request was always this: “Can I ask a stupid question?“ Then he’d ask a question that was A-B-C simple about something I thought I knew. I’d answer the question (out of my own great wisdom, of course). It made me feel so good to be able to be…uh-hem…The Expert. My friend Les listened carefully. He’d think on what I said. Then he’d ask more “stupid” questions, helping me…

HEART, PASSION AND THE WORLD

Netta Comments 22 comments

“Follow your passion”…”take the path with a heart.” We hear that a lot, those of us who are looking for meaning and mana to add to our ordinary lives. Are they the same thing? Do they mean what we’ve been told they mean? Does this advice make sense?

THE TEN THOUSAND HOUR THING

Netta Comments 28 comments

Everybody’s heard about how putting in 10,000 hours working on a particular skill-set pretty much “guarantees” that you will be very good at using those skills. The number makes the “rule” easy to remember. It’s so nice and round. It’s also more than a little intimidating! Ten thousand hours apparently translates to about ten years, after all, and I’m not sure whether that includes time for eating, sleeping and doing all of the other stuff humans do.