Wasting Time

I play guitar.  I play guitar everyday.  Mostly acoustic but I also have an electric, a bass and a classical guitar.  It is one of my favorite pastimes, it feels so good to just sit down and play.  I'm not like other guitar players; I've been playing for years but know very few songs.  I don't actually spend time learning other people's songs.  Some of the best advice I got about learning the guitar was this, "if you learn to play like everybody else, you'll end up playing like everyone else."  Of course that can be taken too far, it is important to learn a little bit about music, about chords, about scales and all that jazz; but if you spend all your time trying to learn one generic pop song after another you'll never develop the creative abilities that makes playing guitar so fun for me.

So I had the day off yesterday and didn't do jack.  I literally sat around all day and played guitar, it was glorious but when the day was done I sat back and thought about the whole day I had apparently wasted.  That's when it hit me.  I'm not wasting time, this is what time is for.  This is why I live. We can't spend every waking minute working on some task or some project at the expense of actually living our lives.  Besides, since when is learning a musical instrument a waste of time.  This is what we should be teaching all our children to do.  There are so many studies that show how music education is good for children, not just their well being but also their academic skills.  Playing music sharpens your brain, it is a productive use of time.  I'm done feeling bad about spending my time doing something I love.

I have no illusions about how far guitar playing is going to take me.  Nowhere.  But that fact isn't going to keep me from continuing to play everyday.  That's not why I do it.  I play because it makes me happy.  Being happy is one of only two things I care about in my life; the other being satisfied with my life at my death.  So I have to ask you, what makes you happy?  And when was the last time you enjoyed doing it?  If those are hard questions for you to answer, I think it might be time you re-evaluate your life.  I'm no therapist, but if you can't remember the last time you did something that truly makes you happy, for no other reason than it makes you happy, I feel comfortable saying that it is time for evaluation and change.

I could say more but I'd rather just go play some guitar.  That would make me happy...