There is an old joke that goes something like this: After hitting his tee shot into the woods, a man turns to his caddie and says, “I’m sorry that I’m such a poor golfer.”  The caddie replies, “You aren’t good enough yet to be considered a poor golfer.”  Just because we may be worse than “poor” at something, be it golf or in my case playing guitar, it doesn’t mean we should walk away from the endeavor. The question we must ask ourselves is whether we get fulfillment from something we are bad at doing, but still keep doing because it makes us happy. The social commentator Fran Lebowitz says that she gave up piano as a child because her parents told her that if she didn’t practice, she would never become a good piano player. Showing an early spark of her sardonic style, Lebowitz replied that practice might make her better, but that she would never be good. I submit that never becoming good at something, so long as you don’t need it to pay your bills, has its own rewards. A minor breakthrough feels like you’ve conquered Mount Everest.  I remember the first time I made a smooth chord transition on my guitar. I felt like the blues guitarist Robert Johnson, and I didn’t have to sell my soul to the devil. The story goes that back in the 1930s, Johnson stood at a Mississippi crossroads and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for guitar mastery. Johnson became a master of the blues, and influenced generations of musicians, but died under mysterious circumstances in 1938 at the age of 27.  I’ll keep trying to get better playing guitar, knowing that I will never be good. Of course, if you still have the dream of becoming a professional golfer or playing guitar in front of thousands at the Kia Forum, but don’t have the talent, you can always stand at a Mississippi crossroads and try to make a deal.  Philip Wasserman Stevenson Ranch The post Philip Wasserman | Aspiring to Be Poor at Something? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.