INCOMPETENT

Some of us can do practically everything. Even more can do a few things well, and qualify as passable in a number of others. Yet another group of folks are able to do several things adequately - sufficient to provide satisfaction and generate rewards, monetary and otherwise - while falling short on the remainder of life's activities.

Then, there are the rest of us.

When the Creator passed out skills and talents, we fully-seasoned incompetents must have been looking the other way.

Nonsense, many helpful friends would insist. Everybody has some kind of talent, these competent humans believe, and insist: something they are able to do especially well. Not all of them are big, noticeable talents, but we all have some skills.

Well, no. Sorry. Some of us simply don't know how to do anything in more than the crudest, most ineffectual way. No one will ever say of us: "Remember him? He was really good at so-and-so." All they'll be able to say is: "Remember him? No, me neither. You hardly knew he was here at all."

Personally, as a child, I had exactly two skills: spelling and math. While in first grade, I solved arithmetic problems meant for seventh-graders. In high school algebra class, the teacher invariably saved back the toughest problem for me.

At age 11, I was the best speller at James G. Blaine elementary school. Upon winning the district spelling bee that year, I thought I was the best speller in Chicago. Soon afterward I was on TV, participating in the Chicago Daily News Spelling Bee. Rather than win, as expected by everyone who knew me, I came in fourth - beaten by two kids whom I'd trounced in our district contest.

This tense experience seemed to be a portent of things to come, of competence lost. Eventually, someone invented the pocket calculator. Later on, the spell checker.

By then, my lack of competence in a host of areas was well established, as we'll see in these chapters.

Comedian Lewis Black may have said it best. Explaining that like stereotypical Jewish people, he's never been adept with mechanical devices and operations of even the simplest nature - he admitted that "it's just by the grace of god I can actually wipe myself."

Most of us aren't quite that ill-equipped, but we definitely get the message.

The point of writing a book on such a negative subject isn't merely to bemoan all my incompetences, of course. No, our real goal is to note that there are plenty of us incompetents out there, struggling unnoticed through each day, amid a world of high achievers.

These chapters are intended to provide a bit of solace to younger, up-and-coming incompetents, who have not yet come to grips with their lack of skills. Or, in some cases, are not yet aware of how inept they are, vainly relying on the old adage that "practice makes perfect."

Sorry, strivers. For typical incompetents, a thousand years of practice and trying hard wouldn't elevate us to the ranks of beginner, much less achiever.

If you're one of us - or think you might be - take heart. You are not alone. Within these pages, you'll see just how bad it could be, if you slipped into the ranks of the full-fledged, all-out incompetent.