The Way to Happiness - Be Competent

What does being competent have to do with being a Hero? 

What does it mean to be competent?  

Is competence a desirable thing and is it a quality that heroes have?

The booklet The Way to Happiness - Chapter 17 sheds (see definition below) some light on this subject. 

What is competence anyway?  Simply said, it means being really good at something. It means being able to get a desired result.   Our sports heroes have this in common, they are REALLY good at what they do, and they continue working hard to get better at what they do.  And, because they are heroes, they are worshiped by their fans and those who know them.

Did our sports heroes start out as sports heroes? What did they do to make it to the top of their game and were they heroes along the way?

So, let's begin. After having decided you want to "BE" something, you are on your way to becoming competent at what you have decided to BE. "I am going to be a good son/daughter", I am going to be a teacher, or I am going to be an artist or an astronaut or I am going to be a basketball player.  Depending on your goals,  what you decide to BE could be farther stated as "professional basketball player" or "world famous painter" or "high school teacher" etc.  What you should know is that you can , at any time in your life, decide to be MORE of something or LESS of something.  Realizing that you love playing tennis, might inspire you to now decide you will be the  best tennis player in your county. 

Throughout your life, you will decide to BE many things and in order to continue to BE that something you will have to become competent at  it. How competent will depend on how far you want to go with it.  

So, according to "The Way to Happiness", there are three major ingredients  to competence and they are observation, study and practice. 

So how does this work out?  

Observation has to do with looking. Seeing what is there, by YOU directly looking at things for yourself. This means being willing to put aside other people's ideas, or opinions or prejudices about something. For example, being told that you can't be an astronaut because you are a girl,  might stop you dead in your tracks if you just accepted this idea. By being willing to directly look at this you would learn that there are female astronauts and you would be on your way to observing what they did to become one.  Another example could be having the "idea that no one can really be happy", and with this idea fixed in your mind, a booklet such as "The Way to Happiness" would never be read or studied.

Study has to do with learning and coming to many understandings about the way things work or how things are done.  Each and every field of activity has know-how or technology. There are facts you will need to know, and facts you will need to memorize. But study is not just about memorization, because memorization does not mean you understand, and without understanding, you will not be able to think with nor properly apply what you have memorized. Understanding why you "hold the ball a certain way"  goes a long way toward being able to "properly and effectively throw the ball".   There are factors that can get in the way of your ability to study and learn,  and knowing what these factors are and using them while you study will result in you being able to think with and apply what you have learnt. You will  feel "bright" and be seen to be that way.  Chapter 17 of The Way to Happiness will tell you more about this.

And, finally there is practice.  It is one thing to know how something is done and quite another to be able to do it and do it well. Much wisdom and learning comes from putting what you have learned into practice and doing it time and time again, until you really know it. A guitar player, might know the notes and the lyrics of a song, but it will take much practice to finally demonstrate competence as a guitar player, playing that song. An inherent part of practice is failure. By observing how you failed and learning more about that and then continuing to practice, turns failure into success.

So, a competent fire-man is a hero because he knows how to fight fires and save lives. A competent car mechanic is a hero because he can repair your car.  A mother is a hero when she knows how to successfully raise her children and her children are on the way to their own success and happiness.  

Being a hero is not an absolute. It is a gradient and relative thing. Being the best cook in a village baking contest makes one a hero in the eyes of the attendant villagers. 

So, you can be a hero, any time and anywhere, providing you are working towards achieving and demonstrating your competence.

And, in so doing you are also on The Way to Happiness. 

Terminology: definitions:

sheds - to give off, to provide

prejudice - an adopted idea that is not based on reason or experience

inherent - a natural and built-in part of something

absolute -  total; not less in any way; complete