Nostalgic About the future
I heard this saying once “Worry is advance interest paid on a loan never taken.” That about sums it up doesn’t it. Easier said than done, way easier, but still its a nice quote to throw out there yes? And then there is the title of this post, Nostalgic about the future. That is definitely the opposite of worry and goes one step beyond optimistic. Optimistic means you are having good feelings about the future, you are looking forward to it. Nostalgic about the future means you are already looking back and reflecting on the future you haven’t had yet because you are beyond a shadow of a doubt certain how it’s going to turn out. That is just next level. That is a whole new level of confidence. I don’t know if I will ever get there but I would love to imagine having that kind of confidence.
We often worry, paid advance interest, on pieces and repertoire and and audition material that we “think” we should be doing and then worry ourselves into a stew about learning them so much that we never actually sit down and learn them.
This is not to say that we don’t have real problems to solve. Perhaps you are reading this and life really is on the line, your future depends on what you do in the next few days. But as an outside observer, as has been said to me on countless occasions, “What is worrying about it going to help?” When do we make up our minds to trust this wisdom. It is the hardest life lesson to learn. Its hard because there are certain things certain times in our life that do warrant and deserve real honest to goodness worrying and maybe even a good cry to go along with it.
A friend, older friend with grown children once said to me (he had just talked with his child and we were catching each other up on the kids) “You know young people, everything is a crisis, everything seems like its the end of the world” He was so calm about everything. He was a great man and I wish we all could be a little more like him.
Whatever you have to tackle, whatever you have to get done, its just like all the pedagogy things we always say, you have to break it down, and you have to be okay with whatever you can do. I think this may be the most difficult part about learning. I know people like me writing about stuff like this say that a lot… like really a lot. “oh no this is the biggest thing…. oh not this right here is the hardest thing…” but I am here to tell you maybe this one actually is this hardest thing about learning because if you can solve this you never get started in the first place. You never move forward. You have to say to yourself, “Whatever I am doing is enough. I am going to do it well, its going to be fine and its enough” That word enough, when you are beating yourself up sound the same as resignation. I am here to tell you friends they are not the same. Enough means you are going to get up again tomorrow and do enough, you are going to get up next week and do enough. We want to do “more” or “Most” or even “Best” and then when we dont we resign, or we cry (I do. No Shame). But if we do enough, we can repeat that as often as we like.
Maybe that is where the confidence comes from. I think I can pretty damn confident about doing enough. I think I could definitely be nostalgic about a future where I am doing enough.
