Muddling and awesomeness...

There are days that I feel like a Jedi. Mostly when I'm rolling, but sometimes when I teach at Uni as well.

Everything is easy, effortless. Occasionally when this is happening I will see the face of the person I'm rolling with, when they've realised they've effectively swept themselves, or given me the pass or have subbed themselves, and the WTF look makes me feel like a magician...

Often I will be asked what I did, or what they did and it's hard to explain. But they don't want to hear it's the product of 6 years of muddling.

The same thing happens at Uni much less frequently - presenting material, a theory, an idea in a way that students jaws literally drop. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Again though, it's taken days, and sometimes weeks of muddling my way through preparation to get a turn of phrase, or the inclusion of an example, just right. It's also taken years of being immersed in these ideas; getting them wrong, making dumb statements and framing ideas poorly to finally get some of them right.

I have seen people with much more potential than me, better athletes, younger guys, better public speakers, harder workers come and go. I've seen people who could have finished a high quality PhD go off and find a job because they burnt out doing their Masters. I've seen guys who smashed everybody after six months of BJJ disappear because of various other life things...

I've seen 'gifted' people fall by the wayside too many times to count.

If I have a 'gift,' it's muddling.

I muddle my way through various aspects of my life. I won't be a 4-6 year black belt in BJJ, but I may make it in 10-12. The thing is though, that barring injury, or some other major life event, I WILL make it to black belt - as long as I'm willing to make a commitment to muddling my way to awesomeness.

I won't be a world champion black belt, but I'll be pretty good.

I will be a respected academic at some point - I possibly won't be a Connell, or a Wetherell, but I'll be pretty good at my job.

I won't get there by being the hardest worker, or by being the most gifted, but by recognising that the path of muddling does bring its own kind of success, its own least non-awesomeness. If I compare myself with the best and brightest (as I often do), I will probably lose heart and will not do as well as I could, but if I muddle, I will still be around when (many of) the best and brightest aren't.

I realise this might be construed as an extended humblebrag...  in which case, it wasn't a very straightforward one...