Become what you Envy
I can’t find the quote, so I’m going to get it wrong. A comedian once said, “Whatever you envy, that’s just a roadmap for what you’re going to do in your career.”
Or something pretty close to that. I think.
It’s good advice. I think everything I’ve accomplished in my life has begun with a little stab of jealousy. As a teenager, I was envious of the attention musicians got, so I started guitar lessons. In college, I wanted the respect and independence my professors had, so I went to graduate school. Later, consumed by naked jealousy for my favorite content creators, I quit a perfectly good academic job to start a YouTube channel.
As I got deeper into woodworking, I was confronted on all sides by people who were just better than me. They did everything better than I did. As time went on, my list of little jealousies got more specific. I envied Paul Sellers for his clear educational videos. I looked up to Chris Schwarz, for both his excellent furniture and his punchy writing style. I was constantly amazed by Richard Maguire’s modest tool kit and by Joshua Klein’s expansive knowledge of early American furniture.
Being surrounded by masters and experts might make you throw up your hands and leave the craft all together. But another response is to look at these titans and try to reverse-engineer their skills. Luckily, woodworkers are fairly mouthy, and most of us write a bit. If you go looking for someone’s story, you’ll probably find it. Peter Follansbee’s stunning skill with joined furniture began when he was a teenager, literally sleeping in a tent in Drew Langsner’s yard so he could attend workshops in green woodworking. Peter is uniquely self-deprecating, and he paints a sorry picture of himself as a fumbling adolescent taking his first tentative steps down the road to mastery. If he can do it, so can you. (Or at least, that’s what he says.)
I started out deeply intimidated by professional woodworkers, but I slowly started to grasp how they got their impressive skills. It’s all some variation of curiosity, energy, reading, and hours upon hours of work at the bench. I’m still nowhere near the skill level of the artisans I look up to, but I’m a few steps down the path. I’m no longer a raw beginner, and instead of slavishly following just one idol, I’ve mixed their influences together and made myself into a craftsman not exactly like anyone else.
Someday, when I’ve fully matured in the craft, I’ll have a style as distinct as any of the people I look up to. I’ll have something that other people can follow. You can do this, too. The first step is just picking out a few people who are better than you. Then, just make the decision to get where they are, even if it takes years.
But don’t envy them, admire them.