How to be good enough (video)

Barbara Walsh, "I'm Breaking Down," Falsettos; Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Mindfulness for insight (lionsroar.com)

When I was 15 I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break, and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people:

"Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject?" And I told him, "No, I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, and I used to take art classes." He went "WOW! That’s amazing!"

And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.” He then said something that I will never forget, which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before:

“I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

That honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them.

I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of talent that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “win” at them.

* * *

As for me that's when I took up Buddhist meditation and excelled because now there was no need to win or even be good at it or crave a goal or strive to "get" something. I was just sitting and watching, and the mind/heart collected and penetrated things very clearly: Coherent-calm (jhana or samadhi) gave way to penetrating-insight (vipassana or prajna).