I’m a bad learner.

A few days ago, I rounded out a drain plug bolt while doing an oil change.  This made my ego tremble, I was walking on glass with my own self-esteem.  It felt like only a few years ago that I was helping repair old engines in school, a few weeks ago dialing in suspension with a friend.  I’ve never been a tremendous mechanic, but I've always felt competent.  This recent failure was the final nail in the coffin that is my rampant and (de)escalating “fall from grace".  I had been blundering here and miscalculating there all the while the gaze of those that were better than I loomed over me, and now I can’t even unscrew a drain plug bolt without causing a catastrophe.  After some time spent wallowing in self doubt, it eventually transitioned into self reflection.  I made a mistake, it happens, but I can't help but ask myself what led to it?  I’ve made it a subconcious objective in life to surround myself with people who are good at things, whether that means they are handy, fast around a track, a perfect shot in FPS games, it doesn’t matter, they are good at things, and in a way, albiet likely one sided, I’ve always felt competition between us.  If everyone I’m close to is good at things, then I have to be too.  That way of thinking has gotten me in trouble more than helped as I would dive headfirst into something I assumed I’d master quickly, and inevitably find all of my shortcomings rapidly.  I would resort to trying anyways and looking dumb, or maybe lying about my skill and trying to pass it off smoothly, or just hang my head in shame and walking away, when I certainly could've just stated that I didn't know what I was doing.  See, when you surround yourself with people that are good at things, you rarely get to see the process it took for them to be good at said thing, and, if you’re me at least, you lose patience, and you start to make mistakes.

Patience, every parent, grandparent, teacher, elder, whatever, will tell you it’s a virtue, and in the ripe old age of 30, I thought I knew that, but I didn’t, I probably still don’t.  Although I've heard the old adage time and time again, in practice, it wasn't engrained in me.  "Paitence is a virtue" they'd say, while simultaneously praising me for picking up a new sport quickly.  "Paitence is a virtue" they'd say, as they told all their friends that I was such a gifted talent.  "Paitence is a virtue", they'd repeat and repeat every time I express discontent with myself, while praising every time I did something quickly.  The term quickly became something I aligned with defeat.  "People tell you that patience is a virtue when you're not good enough.  So I put emphasis solely on being good at everything, so much emphasis on it, in fact that being good at things became secondary, to looking like I was good at things.  I think I’ve finally made enough mistakes to start on the path of learning that maybe patience is a virtue.

I’m a bad learner, like objectively I’m not very good at it, it takes me ages, and it takes repetition beyond what most would consider average.  That's hard for me to admit, even still.  In school, I got to watch my friends and cohorts learn, become better versions of themselves, discover and master new things, while I sat there, the room closing in, wondering why my brain couldn't connect the dots.  In that process of getting upset with myself, I lost patience for myself, I stopped trying to learn and I started blaming myself for being inadequate.  I think it's fair to assume that I wouldn't learn as quickly when half my brain power is assigned specifically to calling myself an idiot.  So instead, I think it’s time to finally learn from what my elders preached, instead of what they practiced.  It's time to embrace the theory that “patience is a virtue”.  In this case, not for others, but for myself.  I am bad at learning, it takes me a prolonged time, and that’s fine, I have some spare time here and there to practice learning a thing or two, at my own, abnormally gradual rate.

Eventually, I do learn, after months and maybe years, I do learn.  And when I do, I’d like to think my understanding of what I’ve learned is fairly comprehensive.  I can take a solid photo, build or fix most peices of household tech you put in front of me, and talk your ear off about Star Wars Canon, and Extended Universe material if you ask.

So, if you suck at learning like me, have patience, for yourself, don’t waste your time looking outward at those doing better than you, focus inward, so you can do better for yourself.