Below Average

I don't know about a general "cure" but I think you can improve at certain things if you set your mind to it and work hard at it. OTOH, my mother was another person who tried to learn to drive many times. Everyone gave up on teaching her, including my father after she drove them into a creek.

I decided not to teach gram to drive.

and I am really brave...

I think if you stop caring and comparing, your life will be a lot easier. It's your expectations that are causing the problem, as well as how you react to your performance. Just don't do the things you're bad at (like driving, singing, acting, cutting someone's hair). Doesn't mean you don't ever attempt other things, but you need to revise your expectations - in fact, don't have any at all.

For example, I am not very good at golfing, but I go anyway. I improve a little each game, but I go so rarely that I forget a lot of the techniques. I have lost a few balls in the water, for example, and I never get them back - oh well. I like the game, though, and feel good when I go out. If I expect to do well (?!), then I'm tense and lose balls. If I don't really care because I'm having fun with friends, I actually enjoy myself and, as it happens, do much better - not that I really care, because I don't. I'm also not great at speaking foreign languages (I rarely get the chance to converse) but when I go to another country, I bone up (crash course) and then try my best. I find that within 2 or 3 days, I'm much more fluent and remember more vocabulary. I generally make myself understood and that's all I want.

Does that help?

JPB, I never tried to learn to drive. No interest and no need for a car. I'm just saying that this is a good thing--for the welfare of all those in the area.

I set my mind to math when I was in school. I worked hard at it. No dice. Not much improvement either.

I'm not good at computer stuff. I panic if my computer hiccups.

I'm not good at math. I don't know if I'm below average at math. I don't know what average is--although I know how to compute averages.

RH, Some things are best left undone.

when Im below average, I know I need to practise or just quit. I have this insatiable competitive spirit that cannot be denied. When I discover that I suck at something, it senmds me into paroxyms of practise. Of course that does not include, bowling, pinochle, and spelling. I just threw in the towel on those things

Mame, I'm not making comparisons, except with myself. If I weren't good at something I liked, such as you and golf, I'd keep trying and to hell with expectations. But I'm not good at things I don't like, which may be more telling than my expectations.

BTW, I never tried driving, but I used to be a good singer and actress. And I'm good at cutting hair.

This. It's not the being average, it's the need to compare and rank that is the big clue to the real issue.

farmerman, I have a competitive spirit as well. There are some things I won't give up on. I just keep at it. For other things, the towel is tossed. BTW, I'm average at bowling, terrible at pinochle, and above average at spelling.

Just has a lightbulb moment.

From very early childhood my expectation was that if I was dealing with something of the mind, I would do well. I assumed it. I expected it. My experience with advanced math was bewildering to me. What's wrong with me? It made me angry. But I think the bottom line is that if I don't like something, I'm not likely to do well. I just don't wanna be bothered.

chai said that she could mostly understand you when you were here.

I think you underestimate how much your english has improved...

Maybe I should have used a different title for this thread. I'm not comparing and ranking. I'm thinking about the things I'm not good at and how they affect me. I'm also thinking about why I'm not good at them.

But I do care. And I don't think that's going to stop.

You have to have something on the ball to efficiently edit a book. I edited my own stories, for the most, and failed at it. That's a tough job you make money at. I envy that ability.

Edgar, I'm good at that. I used to be very good at that.

BTW, You should never try to edit yourself. I wrote a few books. Other people were the editors.

Yes, I found out it cannot work, the self editing.

After some early efforts of mine to sing, virtually all of them embarrassing (birthday parties) and others truly horrible (me being the only person in the choir, elementary school, to show up to sing a couple of funeral masses, I've spent a life not even singing in the shower (I annoy myself, I can hear how bad it is).

I've been pretty deft at some things and do have (or did, who knows lately) good to superior hand eye coordination. I learned how good when I tried to teach resident docs how to fill 1 mm wide wells in agar plates with a syringe and needle. Funny days in the lab, snort. Not all doctors were born to be surgeons. Probably even some surgeons.

On the inbetween stuff, I am probably like you, Roberta. If I don't like it, the hell with it, often enough. If I do like it (say, calligraphy) I'll plod along until I'm adequate.
I have a tech interface problem, which I've mentioned before - even in the lab there was a starter moment of tharn at learning to work with a new lab instrument, but I'd get over it fairly fast. It was like a passing gray cloud of ooohh, nooo. Same with when I learned about grading in land design. It was like pulling taffy with my brain at first - and then, and then, I got it and got fast at it, loved it. I guess I'd call all that taffy time that I can work through.

My whole life, I have wanted to be an artist and a singer. I lack the clarity of vision and the vocal chords. It took some honest words from my wife to convince me to stop singing. I watched viewers bypass my art to admire works by my brother, before I stopped drawing and painting. But, I have come to terms with these failures, for the most.

Which reminds me of a matter I went on and on about in some art post - facility versus interest, for lack of a better word to say what I mean. I had a bunch of mentors in my land arch years, two of them with fabulous art skills. One was a boss who would sketch fast/sloppy with a pencil one of his ideas and .. it would turn out to be to scale. One was a passionate design teacher who probably could draw in his sleep.

The second guy and I were later colleagues on review committees. We tended to agree in our evaluations of student work, as we were more interested in thought than flash. Flash is an aspect of presentation. Sometimes people were good with both, but often the less facile drawer had better/more interesting ideas. So he used to say that facility can get in the way.

Draw and paint, EdgarB, without worrywarting facility at this point. Well, that's my advice.

Yeah....it pisses me off, too. I kind of expect that I can do whatever I put my mind to and hate it when I can't.

And if I find it hard I tend not to put my mind to it.

Mame and I should go golfing. We'd be on par.. lol
I can sing but there a ton of things I suck at doing. I still try though...
I read once, I think it was Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Outliers, that posits to be an expert at anything takes 10 000 hours. I just don't have that kind of time to be perfect at anything. I try not to worry and be the best I can be at whatever I do. Or I pay an expert to do it for me.

I miss singing. Not only did I sing well, but I really enjoyed it.

I drove myself crazy with painting and arts and crafts types of things. I kept improving things. I wouldn't stop.

I have finally learned to draw without worrying about the result. I'm now more concerned with the act of drawing and the feelings I'm representing than the result. Very freeing. I enjoy it.

I continue to play cards even though there are many games I'm not good at. I like to play cards. I don't make an effort to improve. I just play. I'm better than average at poker. Why? Dunno. Also at blackjack.

Osso, Interesting. When it came to my work, I always got it eventually. There's nothing like practical application to get my brain gears in motion.

edgar, If you've come to terms with what you're not good at, great. But, for what it's worth, I think you should do something if you enjoy it. Sing when your wife isn't home. Do art just because. Who cares whether other people like it as long as you enjoy doing it.

Deb, A kindred spirit. Co-pissed offers.

Ceili, Expert is a whole other thing. I'm probably an expert at my work. That's it. 10,000 hours? Don't know. But enough hours.

But I used to be better at it than I am now.