From The Vault: On piano and letting go
Seventeen years ago, when I was seventeen years old, I shared a post on my LiveJournal. If you aren’t familiar with LiveJournal, it was the millennial teen’s original social media platform.
In the post, I write about the concept of letting go by sharing a personal anecdote about piano. While it is decidedly written by a young person, the structure and style of the post are eerily similar to my current day blog posts. Weird.
But I digress.
From time to time I go back to read the posts from my middle and high school years - sometimes to laugh, sometimes to cringe, sometimes to orient myself to all that has changed…and all that hasn’t.
When I read this post from May 2006, I knew I wanted to share it here.
Why? Well, the reason is twofold.
First of all, the post touches on the topics of trust and letting go. And these topics have been coming up quite frequently in conversations with clients as well as with personal situations in my own life. I was already considering writing a post to address these themes, but then I saw the current day reflected in this time capsule post from my youth.
And also, as I read this post, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how learning and growth is cyclical. We like to think that once we have an aha, an epiphany, or a breakthrough, it will stick forever and ever. But most of the time, that’s not the case.
We learn things, and then forget, and then learn them again. Or, we learn things, think we have mastered them, and then life presents the same lesson at a deeper level.
The lessons keep coming back to meet us. And so we must meet them in return.
One more thing. Rather than rewrite or edit the post, I decided to keep it in its original format.
This is a seventeen year old’s version of a lifelong lesson. Maybe you learned this lesson when you were seventeen, too. Or maybe, you’ve learned it recently.
Either way, please excuse the spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
And enjoy.
May 13, 2006
1:23 am
So in a discussion about how to succesfully play the piano i realized that I had given myself the advice I have been looking for.
Kind of.
See, in piano, it is very hard to coordinate the two hands together. This is basically achieved by practicing and practicing so hard that you know each hand by memory.
And then, you have to learn to let go.
It's hard because it goes against every ounce of perfectionism that leads us to practice in the first place. But, you are the one that practiced. And you have to be able to trust yourself enough to let go and let the practicing speak for itself.
I always look for the answer. The answer for this the answer for that. What will i do after graduation? What will college be like? Even more vague questions that I can't seem to face. But, i think the answer is really simple.
I just need to let go.
I've been praciticing my entire life for all of this. I should be able to let go and trust my life to go ahead.
And I think I will.