Government Work

I’ll put it bluntly. Our current culture favors indolence and incompetence. The bare minimum is the standard - from vocational skills, to personal health, to critical thinking.

“It’s good enough for government work.”

To be anything beyond mediocre is to be “elite,” so it seems.

For those of us who recognize the inherent toxicity of a victimized, passive worldview, we often choose a near-antithetical mindset.

“It’s never good enough. Nobody cares, work harder. Stop making excuses.”

I tend to agree that hard work and discipline provide the solutions to many of our worldly problems. But, I have to ask: how do we determine when something is actually good enough?

Let’s consider a basic principle in economics, the law of diminishing returns.

As inputs into a system increase past a certain point, the marginal outputs decline. In other words, more work with less reward.

What does this look like in the context of training? Here’s an example.

Bob is a very strong guy. He squats 600lbs and can bend rebar in half - he’s also a jiu jitsu brown belt. He’s fighting tooth-and-nail to put another ten pounds onto his squat. He carries a pistol, but he can’t shoot very well. His mile time is 11 minutes. He considers himself to be very well-prepared and capable.

Johnny is a great shooter - he’s a USPSA Master. He spends considerable time cycling, running, and swimming. He carries a pistol everywhere. He has no experience with martial arts and he can barely squat his bodyweight. He considers himself to be very well-prepared and capable.

Both Bob and Johnny are impressive individuals. They’re skilled, driven, and capable - in many capacities. However, each has far surpassed the point of diminishing returns in his given interests. What if Bob did some aerobic work and spent more time on the range? What if Johnny spent a little less time on the range and a little more time on the mats or in the weight room?

In both of these examples, I’m not considering performance within a given sport - that often demands a very high degree of specialization. For the sake of communicating a point, let’s look at it through the lens of personal preparedness and capability.

In this regard, both men would likely benefit from recognizing what is “good enough.” By slightly dialing back on abilities and skillsets that are already highly developed, they may be able to rapidly increase performance in other domains.

Capable, skilled individuals often experience myopia and may benefit from knowing when to let off the throttle. Just a small investment of time and effort into underdeveloped abilities can yield dividends.

“Specialization is for insects.”

- Robert Heinlein