Instant Mastery

We are living in an instant world. From instant noodles to instant delivery to instant information, everything is instant. We want speed! And it seems that enough is not in the dictionary.

Nowadays, if we look at newspapers, we will find a lot of information or advertisement on one or few days workshops, seminars, boot-camps or whatever that promise instant mastery of certain subject, the most common one is in the "how to make money" niche. They will tell you that all you need to do is to attend and then you are going to master the knowledge and have the proficient to do whatever they are teaching.

However, is it really true? I believe it is not entirely true.

For me, Learning is a process, and mastery comes from a process. It is not something instantaneous, but something acquired through cumulative learning and practice. With some trips and tricks, we may have it shorter, but there are still process, and ongoing practice is required.

There is no way that one can become a business building expert just by one day or three days seminars. The information may be relevant and useful, but one will need to go to apply them, to practice, get the feedback, refine, then do it again, until one become an expert. One will need determination, hard work and patience to achieve it.

One becomes a doctor through process. So do engineer, pilot, accountant, and others.

It is also how we learn how to cycle, not by reading 500 pages manual or listen to 5 hours instructions on how to cycle, but through a process of falling and trying again.

Same thing with meditation practice, it is a process. Some people go to a week retreat with a mentality that after one week, I am going to be an expert already. I myself used to think like that. But it is really not so. It is a part of process, of ongoing practice. We can't just meditate intensively for 7 days then do nothing for 358 days. There is almost impossible to attain high level of practice by that (unless we have super strong Parami).

So, in conclusion, to master some new thing, to be an expert on certain subject, we will need to go through a process. Learning from a good teacher may help us to accelerate, to avoid certain pitfalls, but we also need to have patience, determine, and hard work. ( :

Retire, then what?

I have heard the idea of retire young retire rich many times. But only recently, I think about it again, in a deeper level. Here goes the question: what do you do after you retire? Watching tv? Slacking? Gossiping? eating junk food? Sleeping? DO what you really want?

Most people may say retire than do what they really want. Hmm... Sounds good. But then, it imply one thing: what we have been doing so far before we retire is not what we want to do.

This thinking strikes me hard, and get me thinking hard. You see, if what we are doing now is not what we really want to do, why wait till we retire? be it old or young... Why not do what we want Now? Why not change it now?

Life is precious, very very precious indeed. It is very sad if we spend 30 to 40 years of our life, working, yet we are not enjoying it, not having fun, and instead bearing the unnecessary pain and suffering, complaining... It is an irony if we are making money, but the work or business that we are in are simply not what our heart want.

You see, if what we are doing is what we want, then we need not to retire, do we? Unless we are not able to do it anymore of course. But otherwise, doesn't it make sense to just keep doing it?

So I think that this could be a useful food for thought. Think about it. What we really want to do in this life? What we should do in this life? Don't wait till we retire, do it now. Enjoy every moment, and hence live life to the fullest.