Enjoy my life as a subject matter expert.

“A man is only as good as what he loves.”
- Saul Bellow

“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles with it.”

- Winston Churchill

“No person who is enthusiastic about her work has anything to fear from life.”

- Samuel Goldwyn

“We work to become, not to acquire.”

- Elbert Hubbard

“Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.”

- David Starr Jordan

“A man is only as good as what he loves.”

- Saul Bellow

“The work will teach you how to do it.”

- Estonian proverb

Is having something new every day to say about a certain subject a sign of mastery

Inspired by an article I read by a graduate of the the U of Penn’sAuthentic Happiness program and a post by Penelope Trunk, one day out of the blue I started writing things about my expertise, it’s a series of lessons. At first I just started writing and then over time it turned into a series of lessons. I post one lesson a day on a writing site I belong to. So far I’m up to 15! It’s fun because I don’t know what I’m going to write next!

Is having something new every day to say about a certain subject a sign of mastery? In time I will be able to answer this question.

I’m also going to post this under the goal “stop trying to define yourself and see who shows up.’

The other day on my 365 question project, I made up a metaphorical “curriculum” for myself where I listed my “major,” my “minor” and 9 “electives.”

My inspiration for starting this goal in April is listed as an elective!

My “major” is something I’ve been doing for seven years, but wouldn’t quite call myself an expert as of yet. Maybe after ten years.

Some of those electives are things I thought I might like to master one day. I’ll probably get certified in two of them. Another is a life skill.

“These Mr. Know-it-alls are occasionally, even quite frequently, to be met with in a certain social stratum. They know everything, all the restless inquisitiveness of their minds and all their abilities are turned irresistibly in one direction, certainly for lack of more important life interests and perspectives, as a modern thinker would say. The phrase “they know all” implies, however, a rather limited sphere: where so-and-so works, who he is acquainted with, how much he is worth, where he was governor, who he is married to, how much his wife brought him, who his cousins are, who his cousins twice removed are, etc., etc., all in the same vein. For the most part these know-it-alls go about with holes at the elbows and earn a salary of seventeen roubles a month. The people whose innermost secrets they know would, of course, be unable to understand what interests guide them, and yet many of them are positively consoled by this knowledge that amounts to a whole science; they achieve self-respect and even the highest spiritual satisfaction.”

Dostoevsky, Fyodor (2012-07-18). The Idiot (Kindle Locations 360-367). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.