being bad at things

Being bad at things isn’t easy for anyone. It’s probably worse for perfectionists, but no one likes to suck.

Lately, I feel like I suck. I have been humbled by two classes I’m taking. The first is called “Art for the Fun of It” and the second is “Intro to Tai Chi”. And here’s what I’ve learned:

I’m really bad at both.

This can be very disheartening, of course. But then I started thinking about a list I made years ago, called “Universal Rules”.  One of the rules I wrote down: the only way to be better at something is by doing it. (It seems obvious, but I have to keep learning it.)

Years ago, a colleague of mine asked me how to learn to run faster. I was a halfway serious runner at the time, but I wasn’t focused much on speed. I worried more about distance and habit. I didn’t have an answer for her, but I was subscribing to a running magazine at the time and told her if I saw any hints, I’d pass them on. It wasn’t long before I found some information, and when I talked to her about it, I started by saying, “You aren’t going to like what I found out.”

She knew what was coming, like we all know: the way to be a faster runner is by practicing running faster. It’s nothing new: you have to practice. I know some people are gifted at things and pick up a skill faster than others. But no one starts out an expert, and some of us start out just plain bad at some things.

even more that I'm bad at...

So, in addition to sucking at these two classes I’m taking, I also realized I’m bad at using a new brush pen that I just got. I made a lot of ugly stuff with it, and I was getting pretty frustrated. Luckily, I went down a rabbit hole and found a YouTube video of Lynda Barry (love, love, love her—her book What It Is is one of my favorites) demonstrating an exercise she does when she gets a new brush. It’s called “the wandering line” and I’ve repeated it several times. The drawing at the top of this post is one of them. I’m still not good at using the pen, but it’s the first thing I made with it that I actually liked.

It’s hard to be bad and press on. But we have to! How else can you learn something new? With every effort, you learn. Keep doing the thing. You will be less bad at it. Will you ever be good? Who knows? But you will be less bad.

Thanks for reading. I hope to see you soon.