My kids' technology education teacher joked with one of them last school year.
"Your dad might be a better writer than me, but I can build a better fence."
Our house is by our high school, and he likely drives by it daily. I laughed, with confidence that the latter was the case.
On Day 10, I was doing a bit of belly aching about the house projects that I didn't know how to do and need to ask for help.
However, I do have enough confidence to build a fence now that I have actually done it.
What made the difference was someone guiding me and working alongside me.
As a few fence panels were falling into my yard, my neighbor asked if I wanted in help in repairing. "Once you are ready and know what you are doing, I'll let you go on your own," he clarified.
Happy for any help, I agreed.
The first panel I did on my own is on the far left.
Compared to the subsequent panels, I see slight issue with the levelness of my initial attempt.
I've been tempted to fix that panel, straighten out. But for now, I have left it there, as a visual reminder of where competence and confidence start.
Maybe related, I think one thing attracts us to digital tools is the cleanness of the platform. If we make a mistake, we can delete and edit the post.
Social media is very performative. Few people go online to look stupid or even vulnerable.
Continuing this thread of public mistake-making to school leadership, I think about organizational psychologist Robert Kegan said in An Everyone Culture:
"In an ordinary organization, most people are doing a second job no one is paying them for. In businesses large and small; in government agencies, schools, and hospitals; in for-profits and nonprofits, and in any country in the world, most people are spending time and energy covering up their weaknesses, managing other people’s impressions of them, showing themselves to their best advantage, playing politics, hiding their inadequacies, hiding their uncertainties, hiding their limitations. Hiding. We regard this as the single biggest loss of resources that organizations suffer every day."
Thinking about all of this, I can see why digital tools can supplant the more messy and complex work of the real world. We can't hide our deficiencies when we work in plain sight.
Engaging in leisure, however we define, might have benefits beyond a sense of joy and accomplishment. It might also be building our tolerance for uncertainty and risk-taking.