I’ve recently begun teaching my daughter how to drive.
This is a new experience for both of us, the first of three children I hope to be able to do this for.
By the time I got to Grace she had already had quite a bit of practice and was really quite accomplished, but it’s an incredible thing to watch what is actually quite a complicated procedure which is practised purposefully and then mastered.
Interesting as you look around to see the amount of people who have actually made the effort to do that. Obviously, some are better drivers than others but most are competent and sit within the 80% competency bundle.
That is no small feat – to pick up a multi-disciplinary task like this and take it to the point of being able to perform it competently and unconsciously to the point where you can have an argument with your spouse and still drive to work.
You can put makeup on, talk on the telephone, daydream and still make it to work without crashing into something (most of the time)
For some reason in society we think this is a skill that we must acquire and one which catapults us forwards although, looking at how many people can drive, it’s hardly unique.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could convince ourselves to spend as much time acquiring and mastering other skills as complex as this to better ourselves going forwards?
Being able to drive is a cultural and status thing. If we were able to convince people learning new skills to improve themselves and better themselves and turn them into unconscious habits would provide benefit and status gain, wouldn’t that be an amazing thing?
Blog Post Number: 1928