Day 249: 10,000 Hours

Gonna keep today’s post short because I came back home just now and realized that I didn’t bring my house keys. It’s 1:30am and I don’t feel like waking up my parents and my grandpa by ringing the doorbell, so I’m going to spend the night in the car.

I had an interesting realization today: My grandfather is 87, and I’m currently 27. He’s lived over three of my lifetimes.

If you told me that in 10 years I’d be a highly skilled illustrator, I’d have my doubts. Even though I enjoy drawing, I’ve never done it consistently enough or studied it to have my drawings look anything more than a 7 year old’s scribbles while blindfolded.

But 10 years is a long time. 10 years ago, I was just about to start university to start studying computer science and gain a lot more experience programming. Today, though I’m far from being an expert or a world-class engineer, I’ve built products used by thousands of people and feel quite comfortable with my level of proficiency when it comes to programming.

It’s hard to imagine it now, but our lives are long enough that we can make significant changes in our career path or life direction and be able to develop a whole new path completely from scratch. And then do it all over again.

Let’s use the popular estimation of 10,000 hours as the ballpark amount of practice time required to attain greatness at a craft. If you practiced 3 hours a day, you’d hit that number in under 10 years. ( 3 * 365 * 10 = 10,950)

If I live to be as old as my grandpa, that means that I have 60 more years ahead of me. That’s enough tie to obtain mastery, or at least very high proficiency, in a handful of other crafts if I put in the time.

How dope! We have the privilege of leading lives where we can become extremely skilled in a myriad of interests and hobbies. All that’s required are two simple steps: (1) Start (2) Keep going.