I’ll admit it: I have a huge Peter Pan complex. I don’t want to grow up. I never have. The phrase “adulting is hard” has left my mouth at least once a day since I graduated college. Pixie dust and Neverland sounds like a much better alternative to death and taxes, but hey, I don’t have much choice in the matter.
I’m certain I’m not living alone with this complex. I doubt anyone wants to be an adult, simply because it tends to be tedious and frustrating much of the time. There’s traffic, there’s laundry, there’s work, there’s bills, and I have to eat right, get eight hours of sleep, maintain friendships, and oh my god I have to make some attempt to exercise, too?! HOW DO PEOPLE LIVE LIKE THIS?!
We’d all rather be children watching cartoons and taking naps when we feel like it, but as we age our list of responsibilities snowballs to the teetering edge of insanity and we feel steamrolled by the never-ending wheel of daily tasks, so entrenched in the doldrums that few of us make time in our lives for things that bring us joy, fulfill us, challenge us.
The good news is that there are ways to escape from the tedium that adult life can be. Catching happy hour with a friend is a simple, easy way to decompress from adult life. Other options are more intimidating and time consuming, like learning an instrument.
It’s easy to think that music education is a child’s pursuit. It isn’t exactly heavily advertised as anything other than a child’s pursuit. I think the violin in particular gets a reputation for being an endeavor to be started as a early as possible to yield maximum success. If you see enough videos of prodigious four year olds playing virtuosic concerti with ease, you’ll start to believe that you aren’t equally as capable because your brain has lost its plasticity and you weren’t raised in a musical environment and you think you’re tone deaf and when would you really even have time to practice, and so on and so forth until the naysaying voices in your head tell you it’s impossible and you shouldn’t try. I think that’s a huge disservice. Music is for everyone, and music education should be, too, but that’s not often the message that’s sent to adults who “wish they took the time to learn an instrument as a kid.”
However, I am the proud teacher of a decent number of adult students, ranging in age from their mid twenties to their early 50’s. Interestingly enough, each of these students seemed to be uncomfortably aware of this unfounded stigma. They showed up to their first lesson looking sheepish, acknowledging the perceived strangeness of teaching the violin to an adult almost immediately: “I always wanted to learn as a kid, but I never had a chance. Now I’m trying something new. No one knows I’m doing it, I’m too embarrassed to tell anyone.”
I want to take a moment to sing my praises for each of these adult learners. They’re doing life 100% right, but they don’t feel that way because they are immersed in the discomfort of a new and vaguely intimidating endeavor (most likely thanks to many viewings of said prodigious toddlers).
I am certainly not the first person to say this, but the best way to build a life that you will look back upon with satisfaction is to spend as much time as you can pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, willingly putting yourself in situations that challenge you. I understand it’s a struggle – we’re all creatures of habit, and introducing a new habit takes a whole lot of work. But I find that people rarely regret trying something new, regardless of how difficult they perceive the endeavor to be. Leaving the comfort zone and propelling yourself into something creative is especially valuable, because everyone needs an outlet and everyone deserves to work with something beautiful everyday.
The violin is a beast. It’s among the most difficult instruments to play. But, you know what else is hard? Running a marathon.
Has anyone felt embarrassed about successfully running a marathon? NO.
So why be embarrassed about choosing to play one of the most difficult instruments to master?
That’s bad ass, and I respect the hell out all of y’all.