Practice makes perfect

Penn & TellerThe article An Unreasonable Amount of Time by Allen Pike writes about a magic trick that seemed nearly impossible but it worked because Penn had buried 52 cards in a park and waited months for grass to grow back over them,

“Teller [of Penn and Teller] describes the underlying principle like so:”

“Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.”

In this case, the trick isn’t dextrous hands or a nimble mind but dedication and planning.

“It can be difficult, psychologically, to commit yourself to spend an extreme amount of time and attention towards a goal, no matter how worthwhile.

“[…]

“Eventually, years in, this will culminate in overnight success. You’ll have achieved something that seems magical – impossible, even.

“It just takes some time.”

Achieving long-term goals is much easier if you can enjoy the journey rather than just anticipate the destination. It takes a lot more willpower to stick with something if you don’t enjoy doing it, or if you don’t get a feeling of accomplishment from completing a piece of it.

Nothing worth doing can be done quickly. If it seems impossible or would take years, consider what it would look like from the perspective of your future self. If you don’t start now, that future self won’t be able to benefit from the investment that you began in the past.

What I’m saying is that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and get-rich-quick schemes only work if you’re a criminal, taking from others. What you’re doing might be legal, but you didn’t earn it. So why should you have it?

But that sounds so f’ing self-help-y that I’m mad at myself a little bit.