We are often told to plan for the future, and to think-up goals to direct us. But what happens if, rather than working on our goals and plans, we get stuck looking up at the mountain of effort needed and spot those climbers who are head of us? We think, “we’re behind, out of time.” Truth be told this fixation on feeling behind is what keeps us there.
Amongst loved ones I’m mostly known for being impatient in the sense of feeling behind with not enough time to catch up. Time was wasted in my past for various reasons; some mine, most not. At 32 (at time of writing), I still do feel entirely behind. I wish I had pursued the field of music 10 years ago when I first heard the unmistakable voice urging me. Perhaps it is fear and cowardice that stopped me, what else could it be?
These days I have pointed most of my time and attention to this musical ordeal. I’ve began seriously studying music theory a few months ago. In that time I have learnt so much relevant information to this creative field that it is becoming easier to digest newer theory and apply it. And yet, with the tremendous joy it brings me each day, I still feel behind.
The more I chew on the sentiment, the more I realize the needless stress it puts on me. It’s like I’ve set up a fictional timer that ticks to my ear and throws off my composed state of mind; or better it feels like I’m a hamster on a wheel – no matter how fast I run the growth is not fast enough to achieve something of merit.
The difficult part is coming to terms with the limited time we have, and how stupidly we spend it repeating the things that remove us from our true mission. Most of us have a voice that tells us our true mission, and a second voice that snuffs out the first with a pillow. At some point, that first voice gets so loud the pillow doesn’t suffice, and at that moment our behinds are set ablaze with the heat of drive and passion.
If we keep letting the second voice win, we later discover it to be the voice of sloth and fear. And with that, we’d have spent a wonderful existence afraid of acting towards our true purpose, regretting the outcome as we fade away. Balancing these facets of our grand adventure is one of life’s most difficult challenges for individuals whose mission-voice is trying to make itself heard.
The best way to spend our time is in service of our personal mission; it yields quality benefit to the individual and their surroundings as that individual’s potential is maximally offered to the field they naturally reverberate with – be it music, or mathematics.
Life being the effortful story that it is, we get caught up wasting our time not in service of our personal mission, but with things that jeopardize it – be it working too much, partying too hard, getting too high, fighting with our partner, eating out too often, blowing time on frivolous outings, finding reasons to distract ourselves, blaming a lack of time, etc… Think! Excluding those meaningful dinners and conversations, how much of it is truly more valuable than your mission? Everything in your life should be organized around this mission. Good luck out there, and never put down your creativity. There is no greater waste of human life. Remember to have patience and focus. Don’t look up at the near insurmountable challenge ahead, just keep at it. As the late great Frank Zappa once said “Don’t stop, and Keep Going.”
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I totally feel you and in the last few years I felt time passing much faster than ever. The dreams/ideals I had as a teen, I had them delayed, again and again and again (just for a “few more years a studying to have a secure job and a secure life”). And now it’s been like 10 years and I still haven’t started all the stuff I wanted to do (play with a band, record an album, for instance). Then now sometimes I feel regretful. What is “the secure life” I traded my passion for? Do I even want that security?
Taking example on artists that we admire really does not help when you realize that they have accomplished “much more” (musically speaking) when they were still way younger than us. But then I remember that most of these guys went ALL IN on their passion and for a lot of them, there was no real possibility of coming back in case it did not work. That’s a way of re-assuring myself I guess 🙂
I think some of the “inertia” you talk about in the article (and that I feel as well) has to do with OCDs and stuff that comes from anxiety; like the thoughts that keep you “in your comfort zone” (for instance staying in studies because we know what it is and we can do it) and avoid difference/novelty. Maybe successful artists are also anxious, and have focused on music as it was in their comfort zone; the same way that staying at school is in my comfort zone? It leads to a lot of questions like, can we change our comfort zone? Is there a recipe for being a successful musician? Is a successful musician happy? Are there some successful musician who don’t really like doing music?
I like Zappa’s quote but I would just modify it slightly: “Start, Don’t stop, and Keep Going.” Sometimes, starting is the difficult part.
Starting to study music theory seriously is a great thing (that I have been delaying for years as well) and it’s a first step to build momentum. Once you have that momentum, it should be easier to maintain. “Don’t stop, and Keep Going.” reflects perfectly the mindset that one needs to achieve any goal that they have. Focusing on the goal itself is probably not the key to making it: I am pretty sure if you ask any of the 70s rock bands “how did you achieve musical success?”, they’d probably say they have no idea, there were not looking for success, they just kept doing what they liked doing and one day, they realized that they were successful. Hell, some of them might not even have realized they were number one. Some of them did and did not support it at all (The Doors, Nirvana).
Thanks for the article Anthony; I had been thinking about this topic as well and I liked reading your thoughts about it