Have you ever felt extremely extremely tired?
That's how i'm feeling now. Exhausted to the bone.
I think i may have been taking this music practise business to an extreme. Like i've been worrying about it more than I've been enjoying it.
That's the feedback i get from most people that i jam with, learn from or practise with. That i should not stress up about it, but enjoy it.
I read this wonderful little excerpt from from 'Follow Your Heart' yesterday, written by Andrew Matthews (which is an absolutely recommended read btw)
When I set out to be a portrait artist, I decided nothing would get in my way. My recipe was "paint ten hours a day, seven days a week - and if that doesn't work, paint all night". I painted some woeful picutures. Exhuasted and frustrated, it began to dawn on me that desperation doesn't work.
Life remains a struggle while you insist it's a struggle. There is such a thing as letting things unfold.
A young boy travelled across Japan to see a great martial artist. Given an audience with the Sensei, he said: "Master how long will it take me to become a great martial artist?"
The sensei replied 'Ten Years'
The young boy then said, 'Master, I am very keen. I will work day and night. Now how long will it take?"
And the Sensei said: "Twenty"
That's the paradox of life i guess. Persistence does pay off, eventually, ref. to the parable of the persistent widow in the bible, but when we're struggling over and worrying about something we want so badly every waking hour of our life, we take longer to get to our destinations, and in the meantime, we're not enjoying the process.
What guarantees are there that we'll still be alive tomorrow? I've heard it said so often that it's 'the journey is more important that the destination,' how often we fail to internalize it though.
I've got this poster stuck up in my room now, it's actually a picture of a girl at the top of a flight of stairs leading out of the woods into the light. Below the picture is a quote that really spoke to me.
'Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life, as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed'
- Booker T. Washington
