We were impressed with what we saw.

It wasn’t the first time we had watched a videotape of a psychotherapist during a therapy session. We, however, were (are) more accustomed to watching ourselves interact with patients on tape, which usually induces feelings of inadequacy and anxiety.

Watching this person interview the patient inspired something like awe, that same sensation one feels when observing a sleight of hand magician manipulating a deck of cards, a talented basketball player successfully completing a difficult three-point shot (think Larry Bird), or a gymnast gracefully executing feats of near-impossible flexibility.

I sighed—with both hope and resignation. Wow… I want to be able to do that. I want to be good at therapy. That’s so admirable… and daunting! Do I even have the capacity to be that good? Will I ever reach that level of skill?

I conferred with some supervisors.

“Well,” they uniformly said, “these people have been doing this for years. It’s a function of experience. You’ll get there—it takes time.”

I nodded, dissatisfied with the answer. I want that now.

“And,” they continued, “these people spend a lot of time thinking about their interactions with patients. They transcribe sessions. They read the transcriptions of sessions of their mentors. When they see an effective interaction, they accost the individuals involved and ask questions: ‘Hey, how did you do that? how did you handle that situation?’ They think about their work a lot. This is the focus of their lives.”

I nodded again, rapidly running through my daily schedule in my mind’s eye. Just how much time would it take for me to review all of my sessions, read more books about interviewing, ask various people about how to hone my skill set…?

“… but, lots of things interest me,” I finally said. “I want to do a variety of things. If I devoted all that time to my skills, then I wouldn’t have time to dance, write, go out with friends, run….”

“Yeah,” one lamented. “I have that problem, too.”

“If only we didn’t have to sleep,” I dryly remarked. “We spend a third of our lives asleep—imagine all the things we could do and accomplish if we weren’t unconscious for all of that time!”

Am I destined to be a jack of all trades and master of none? Mastery is a wonderful feeling and a grand accomplishment—it’s nice to really know something and do it extraordinarily well.

“I think that skills generalize,” another one said. “I used to be so impulsive—when I was in training, people had concerns about me seeing patients. I was too impulsive—my mouth would just go off. Supervisors had to rein me in all the time. I learned a lot about patience over those years, though, and now I find I’m much more patient in all the areas of my life. For example, I can now draw landscapes with more accuracy and in less time compared to ten years ago. Back then, I’d make a lot of errors—I’d have to erase a lot or restart frequently—and now, I am able to sit still for a longer period of time and my lines stray significantly less. So I really think that everything you do affects everything else. Sometimes we just don’t think about it like that.”

Is there anything wrong with being a jack of all trades and master of none? Diversity of skill produces a wonderful feeling and is an accomplishment in of itself—it’s nice to adapt easily to different contexts and exercise flexibility.

Must it be a zero-sum game? How do we choose what we shall sacrifice in pursuit of specific goals? What do we lose (in terms of experiences, relationships, goals, etc.) if we develop only one particular aspect of our lives? What do we gain? Should we direct our energies towards achieving “perfection” (in one realm) or “good/satisfactory” (in several realms)? (”The perfect is the enemy of the good.”) How do we choose what we value?

This is the problem of wanting everything. (I think.)