July 22
Practise even the things you despair of. The left hand, too, unpractised in everything else, holds the reins more firmly than the right — for in this it is practised.
Meditations XII,6
Listening mode
Practise even the things you despair of. The left hand, too, unpractised in everything else, holds the reins more firmly than the right — for in this it is practised.
“I can't do that” sounds like a statement of fact. Usually it contains two claims that are hard to tell apart from the inside: you haven't learned it, or you aren't suited to it. The first describes a state, the second a limit.
You could only find out the difference by practising. But that is exactly what you give up as soon as the second reading makes sense to you. So the verdict confirms itself. It stays valid for a long time because no one tests it.
And yet you often think of a lack of talent in very broad terms, while ability develops in very narrow ones. Perhaps you consider yourself bad with numbers and still split a bill among several people in your head without effort, because you have done it often. The ability doesn't keep to the borders you drew for it. It grows at a single spot you keep returning to.
That doesn't make it any easier. Practice without hope feels like defiance or like wasted time, and in the first weeks it cannot be told apart from either.
Some things still won't suit you afterwards. Only then you will know it for a different reason.
