Mastery and perfectionism are not exact synonyms, but they have elements in common I believe. It is hard to completely master something without having somewhat of a perfectionist nature. Mastery also requires a high level of persistence, as one must overcome frustration, boredom, long plateaus and other obstacles to achieve true mastery of something.
No one has ever described me as a perfectionist. When I perform tasks, I generally try to get them done quickly and adequately. Perfection is rarely if ever my target. In fact, I will confess to occasionally completing things in a rather slipshod manner. I have always been eager to check things off my list and get on to the next thing. Quantity over quality! Sometimes, that leads to a less than ideal end result.
When it is clearly important that something be done carefully and with attention to detail, then I do my best to comply, but again, I will only go so far.
The fact is that I get bored easily. I love to do interesting things, and I am especially enchanted by the first period of acquaintance with a new hobby or interest or task, but I lose interest if a long plateau arrives and I make little or no progress for an extended period of time.
I have developed a lot of interests and a lot of capabilities in my life. I am fortunate (or perhaps not?) to have a wide variety of talents and I have spread my passion across many, many things. In my youth and early adulthood, I pursued sports with an almost manic energy. I have been writing essays and some fiction for many years, including one novel. I have picked up four different instruments – guitar, piano, banjo and mandolin – with varying degrees of commitment. I have written songs and I played in a band for a few years. I have had periodic bouts of woodworking fervor. I have studied and obtained reasonable proficiency in German and French, and am working on Spanish. I have read books at a fairly decent clip my entire life – both fiction and non-fiction.
I am reasonably accomplished at most of the above but I would never claim to be a master of any of them. Was I remiss in not pursuing one or two to a truly advanced state? I had my moments of trying. I have worked on chords, riffs and scales in guitar and become a reasonably good guitar player, but have never been able to achieve a really high level. It just doesn’t seem worth the effort and the tedium.
In my academic and professional life, I went through various phases of commitment, sometimes just relying on my native intelligence and capabilities to achieve things and other times really applying myself quite assiduously to the work. But again, never really a true perfectionist.
I think the closest I ever came to true mastery was with soccer in my senior year of college. But that was a relatively short-term period of focus.
The old expression ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ is one I often use to describe myself, though in moments of self-flattery I am happy to embrace the term ‘renaissance man’. I suppose I am a renaissance man in the sense of having a very wide range of interests and knowledge in both the sciences and the arts. But of course many of the classical renaissance men were true masters in some things, so I guess that’s where the comparison might be a bit self-delusional!
Would I be more fulfilled if I were a true master of something? I don’t think I would. One is never fully self-satisfied if one is honest. Self-doubt is a very human trait, and one always poses ‘what ifs’ at various times in one’s life. Generally, I am at peace with the path I took and the ‘breadth versus depth’ nature of my passions. But of course I cannot help but wonder what it would be like to be a true master. Perhaps in the next life!
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