About a week ago, the garbage disposal in our kitchen started to leak. I did a little research and found out that it was probably a broken seal and that a full replacement was the best plan of action. Between having some time on my hands and my frugalness, I wanted to take on the job myself. I had never removed or installed a garbage disposal before but as my buddy Corey says sometimes, "Dude, if other people can do it, so can you." So with a little confidence, some knowledge acquired from YouTube, and a bunch of tools, I proceeded forward.
During the 4 hours of work that occurred, I experienced many of the components of the learning process. I started off with confusion, felt some success, more confusion, frustration, doubt, concern, and sense of accomplishment. Eventually the old garbage disposal was in the trash and the new one was properly working. At some point it dawned on me that the entire process resembled what it is like to learn to fly fish or tie flies.
For me, when I got started in fly fishing and fly tying, I have no idea where to start. All I knew was that I wanted to teach myself. I didn't want to pay somebody to do it for me. I started off my reading instructions but then quickly moved to YouTube. Everything seemed so difficult and so confusing until I started getting my hands dirty and figuring things out. It was frustrating, rewarding, and frustrating again. When I thought that I had mastered something, I realized that I had just completed one step in a journey that seemed to be a million miles long. But before I knew it, I had gained a little confidence and felt like I was making progress. After enough learning had taken place, I felt like I could help somebody else that was struggling with the process.
While I feel like I now understand the process of installing a garbage disposal, I understand that I will never fully comprehend everything there is to learn about fly fishing and fly tying. With the garbage disposal, there was an end goal of getting the sink back in working order again. There were small milestones like removing the old disposal and assembling the new one. With fly fishing there are small milestones like catching your first fish, catching a trout on a dry fly, or catching a fish on a fly that you tied. However, with fly fishing, there is no end to the learning. There are always more techniques to learn, new flies to tie, and unexplored bodies of water to visit.
There are multiple reasons for this post. One thing that I hope you take away from reading this is that I hope you remember that the learning process can be intimidating, frustrating, and difficult. However, the reward that comes from achieving something seems to make all of those other (seemingly) negative feelings fade away. Second, the journey of fly fishing and fly tying IS the reward. Don't get me wrong, there are rewarding moments of catching big fish and have days that boast gaudy numbers of fish being caught. Those moments are just stepping stones and rewards of you growing as an angler.
The best part of learning about fly fishing and fly tying, in my opinion, is that there is not an end of the road. There is no mastery of either discipline. You can participate in both activities for your entire life and never reach the end of the learning experience. The learning experience IS the journey that we choose and we accept all of the reward and frustration that comes along with it, just like we do in life!
No comments:
Post a Comment