Falling Behind

It's funny I titled this "Falling Behind" because I feel like I'm falling behind in a basic material way - leaving my homework to the last minute, failing to blog for AAAAAAAAAAAGES and forgetting things, but in a completely separate way I feel like I'm getting ahead.....

Let me explain. I know all the things that I should have done. I should've finished listening to all those CD's by now, I should've gone over the chord changes to Dearly Beloved more before my gig tonight, I shouldn't have left my arranging assignment till the weekend before but the remarkable thing is that I don't care.

It's not that I actually don't care about those things because in actual fact I do. A lot. The fact is that I'm ahead because I can finally see those mistakes, take them for what they are, learn from them and most importantly not beat myself up for it. Tonight, for example, I played my first gig of the school year with my school ensemble in the concert hall. We played an arrangement I did for the tune Dearly Beloved. I was the first to solo, it was the first tune of the night, I was the first person to solo and the fact is my solo really wasn't happening. The entire time I absolutely knew that it was because I didn't know the changes well enough and it was too fast to be able to earball my way through. And that was it.

Now normally, that one solo would taint the entire performance for me in my mind and diminish all of the wonderful successful parts of the performance as a whole. However, tonight it doesn't bother me. I still feel great about the concert, and even about the tune Dearly Beloved because I know that that solo didn't have to be perfect. It is an idication of what I need to work on - and that is learning the changes to the tunes I'm playing. The fact is, I'm tired of living in denial and making excuses. What's the point in making an excuse for why you failed to do something correctly? That doesn't promote personal growth. It promotes weakness. Why not admit to your weakness, address it and then go home and work at what it was that you screwed up on? It seems ridiculously obvious but to be honest that place of denial is so common. All you have to do to fix it - man up and be aware.

I feel like so many people are completely content to be blissfully unaware of what is happening in their lives and around them and therefore fail to grow. They screw up, blame it on the weather and go home and watch t.v.

So on that note, I will admit that I screw up. And now, I'm going to go work on the changes to Dearly Beloved. Problem solved.

Sweet Dreams,
Ange xo