Choosing What to Practice

This may seem like a silly post.  We practice the thing we want to be good at, right?

Well, is there anything we do we don’t want to be good at?  Consider the domains of your life, such as spirit, mind, and body; or family, friends, and community; or professional, financial, and household.

In other words, a domain of life is a kind of abstraction, where a certain set of rules, skills, or relationships apply that do not obtain in another.  There may be a certain amount of overlap, but in general the different domains require different competencies in order to be successful.

Is there any domain in which you live that you wouldn’t choose to be competent? Suppose you are an accountant, married with children.  Just to be an accountant implies a certain level of competence.  In general a person would need to go to college and earn a degree in accounting to even be considered for an accounting job placement.

But beyond that, what do we expect?  Does the person expect to continue “practicing” accounting in the sense of going above and beyond what is required for her job in order to get better at accounting?  Does she have a professional practice?

What about being married with children?  How do we get better at being a spouse, or parent?  Being married with children generally implies we live together; that we pay our bills from a pooled income; that we maintain our home together; and that we parent our kids together.  But how do we become competent at those things?  Does being a good accountant imply we will be a good spouse and a good parent?

This week we will be looking at the idea of domains of practice.

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