Thread: It’s a marathon…not a 100-yard dash.

I knew this guy (more than one actually) that had a bunch of “sayings”, you know that guy, the guy that always has some knock off saying from an old tv show or something and always needs to chime in. I mean you could be talking about some serious stuff, getting it off your chest, and BAM out of now where you get a messed up proverb.

Well, sometimes they have merit. When I hired out as a junior analyst, a senior analyst asked me, “Do you know what the different between a new analyst and an experienced analyst is? I had no idea. He said, “A new analyst hasn’t made the same mistakes that the experienced one has”. I think this “saying” is appropriate to straight razors – shaving technique, stropping, honing, etc…

Like everybody else, I have done my fair share of reading and taken the vast amount of advice on this forum. However, from a developmental aspect, at what point do we start making our own mistakes and accepting them for what they are to progress? I have learned more by messing up things than by learning from my successes. It’s a balancing act, no doubt about it. I could watch youtube videos all day on how to do a particular thing – but I noticed my overall experience improve when I stopped thinking about it, and became content that mistakes will come, it’s just a matter of learning from the mistake and moving on.

The last thing anybody wants to do is cut themselves. I applied Lynn’s noble advice, which is undoubtedly correct, for the first shave. But guess what, sooner or later, I cut myself. It’s the thrill of making a mistake and rectifying the mistake in real time. My face is ok, and it was quite liberating. I felt proud like I was wearing a badge or something.

To sum it up, in a cheesy saying, “it’s a marathon, not a 100 yard dash.” It’s not the best to think we can do this without making a mistake, or fumbling over sharpness tests, or taking a used razor and trying to hone it. I wish I was perfect, and got that clean BBS shave right right away. But in reality, it was the poor shaves that gave me feedback to do things different.

Just to think, there was a time when Lynn didn’t know how to shave with a straight? He might have been 7, but nonetheless, we are all at some point novices and amateurs in this crazy world of shaving with a straight.

Just some thoughts. Thanks.

Learning what constitutes a mistake and how to fix it then acting on that knowledge is what creates an expert.

An artist friend of mine once told me painting was nothing more than slapping color on canvas and then fixing all the mistakes.

Pretty much sums it up. Very nice.

I really enjoyed this, thank you. We all need to remember to slow down a bit and take stock of what we're doing. It's very easy to get caught up in the excitement.