01 October 2012

Choose Happiness: The Road To Mastery



One of the books I include in my litany of sources for this blog on happiness is “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch.  If you are unfamiliar with this book or story, Randy was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University.  He gave his last lecture, a tradition amongst professors, a few years back.  For him it truly was his last lecture as he was dying from cancer.  He passed away a few months later.

He shares a story about his football coach who was a very tough but fair man.  One day, after an exhausting practice, one of the assistant coaches said to Randy, “Coach Graham rode you pretty hard today, huh?”  Randy agreed.  The assistant coach continued, “That’s good.  When you’re screwing up and no one is saying anything anymore that means they gave up.”  And so it is.

Dr. Stephen Marmer who defined the 4 stages of life – Dependence, Mastery, Big Fish In A Little Pond and Small Fish In A Big Pond.  Pausch’s story speaks on Mastery.  We may not always appreciate the long practices, the push ups, the running, the coach or mentor or colleague barking at us to spur us on or the long court proceedings.  We would prefer to do it at our own pace, on our own terms.  But the silence of our own will is sometimes deafening.  We need to be challenged.  We need to hear some things which make us uncomfortable.  Ultimately, we need others who care enough about us to focus more on doing good for us, versus doing nice things in order to gain our affection (boy this sounds familiar!).

In an interview, near his death, Randy said that sometimes you leave the field and the score is not in your favor.  You know that you really gave it your all.  The other team was just too strong.  He ended by stating that even if he was not all that important, “I had my hour.”

Our road towards mastery is pock marked with failure.  This is necessary.  Here lies growth, maturity and progression towards the ‘big fish’ stage where your ‘hour’ may come.  Stay patient.  Stay focused.  Stay strong.

Stay Happy My Friends