***Cringe***

 

A casualty of the pervasiveness of social media in teens' lives (including the two that live under my roof) is that excellence comes across as ubiquitous and effortless. Business success, athletic achievement, and performing arts alike are presented in carefully polished ways, to the point that we are harder to dazzle and further distanced from what it takes to accomplish those things. 

Of course, excellence in the real world takes time and effort. It also takes failure and awkwardness. Our young generation is often accused by us old heads of being unwilling to put in the reps to get good at something, which is either coded or directly stated as "lazy." I posit that fear of being seen doing anything that isn't perfect is the greater barrier.

Not only perfect. Perfectly flawless, and done with an ease of care and an economy of effort, because even if you're perfect, if you have to put sweat into it then it falls short, at least when compared to the content that our youth are consuming. 

I worry that this fear of doing something "cringe" is keeping people from putting in the time and effort to get good at things. Anything worth doing cannot be done easily at first. Indeed, the greats endured many failures to achieve that effortless performance. And it's not just past tense: they continue to toil, bearing many attempts behind the scenes in order to maintain their greatness.

I hope my kids and other young people will have the desire to be great. And I hope they will be willing to be "cringe" to get there. I would hate for them to either think that greatness should come naturally, or not try at all and live the life of a consumer rather than a producer. But I'm not sure how things will play out.