I’ve been told that a person just can’t be an expert at very many things, and that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to be great at something. Then, this was basically dismissed. Now, I find myself agreeing with it. Since time limits what you can do, then you choose what you want to study or practice or just do at any moment when you’re not working or taking care of those necessities we all share. Someone asked me today whether I had any suggestions to help someone determine exactly what part of a particular model gun was wanted based on the minimum number of key words used in the question – when the person asked has no firearms background. I threw out a few comments but realized that how would I distill 40+ years of firearms knowledge into some kind of usable instant reference guide? At the same time, I also reminded my colleague that I had absolutely no idea what teams played in the Super Bowl, never watch sports, do not know anything about golf, popular culture and rarely watch the news.

Spending most of your time learning about personal defense isn’t going to make you the center of a social universe. If you do use most of your time toward any one thing, of course you’d end up pretty good at it. With some talents, there is also just that – some kind of innate skill. If I practiced playing a guitar for 10,000 hours or 100,000 hours, I am not going to play a guitar like Eric Clapton. I can think it, wish it, throw rocks at the moon but it ain’t happening. On the other hand, I can probably outshoot Mr. Clapton, but that skill won’t make me famous. Might keep me alive.

Since time is the finite “thing,” please be sure to use what time you have to move toward who you want to be. If you want to sit on a couch and watch movies, I’m not the judge and that’s a pretty easy skill to pick up. It will take very few hours for you to become a real expert – and after a quick glance at any random group of people, I’d say that skill has been fully realized by many. If you’re looking for some other skills, then you, too, may note that you are no longer involved in many things that other people do – they’re not bad things, you just don’t have the time. It seems like years ago, though I worked more hours, I also had more time (I had less responsibilities). I wish I’d have learned Spanish and French. Instead, I worked on motorcycles. That must have seemed more important at the time, but it wasn’t true, because now I pay other people to work on my motorcycles and I still wish I’d have learned a couple of other languages. Choose what you want to learn carefully, so you’ll end up with something new that is of personal value to you in the future. While the time you have is fixed, what you can learn in that time is almost infinite. Take advantage of it.