Fail, repeat, succeed.
Let’s be honest, I’m going to fail. In starting a new journey today, I am anticipating and accepting that I am going to make many, many mistakes. Some of those mistakes will be small, and some of them are going to sound terrible.
Those around me may beg me to stop, and there will be days when I am going to work on this journey despite more pressing matters. Times when I ignore everything else, and lose myself in the unbridled joy, frustration and insanity that is learning a stringed instrument.
I just became the owner of a new cello.
Which is a ridiculous thing, in that I have very little musical talent, and even less musical experience. I might sing in the car (when I’m by myself) but that doesn’t mean I’m any good at it. Yet for reasons that are not quite clear to me yet, I am possessed of a dream to master the cello.
So I’m going to move forward, secure in the knowledge that I am going to sound terrible for a long, long time.
And I’m ok with that.
In the past, the inadequacies that I bring to this journey would have stopped me cold, and dissuaded me from ever embarking on such a foolhardy endeavor. Yet now I am able to accept those inadequacies, and welcome them along on the journey.
While they may prove an inconvenience for a time, I am choosing to believe that eventually they will either fall away or dwindle in despair as I outgrow them, layering skill upon talent with hours and hours of practice.
Or, they may succeed, and I might give up. Who knows.
What I do know is that I will be ok with whatever happens, because I am invested in the experience, and not in the outcome. I have no idea if this is something that I will come to love, or just to experiment with, or eventually to lay aside and move onto something else.
And I can tell you that there is incredible power in allowing myself the freedom to do whatever feels right. If I am practicing, and it sounds bad, who cares. This is for me, not for anyone else. If I succeed, and become proficient, it’s still only for me.
I’m never going to perform in public, so I can play for myself and enjoy the process, rather than the performance. And if I decide that I am going to give it up, well, it will have been an adventure, and a journey of discovery.
By accepting whatever comes, I free myself from the pressure and the pain of an expectation. If I sound bad, that’s ok. If I sound great, well that’s ok too.
The only way I can lose out is if I allow myself to become so concerned about how anyone feels about this journey that it impacts my freedom to feel however I feel about it.
Because in the end, I alone am responsible to myself for this experience.
Just as you are responsible for yours.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings