Tonight, I had a piano recital at my college and, being the deep thinker that I am (especially when I'm particularly tired, and it IS the end of the week), I came to an interesting realization while zoning out on my drive home. With thoughts ranging from my imperfect performance to the impatient drivers I encountered on my way to school, I realized that these two events share a common point. In thinking about both, I was focusing on the bad things and thinking about the things I could have done better.
I tend to do this a lot in life in general - sometimes as I'm driving innocently down the road, my brain decides to remind me of That One Time when I messed up while taking Drivers Ed or as I'm thinking about a friend I remember That Conversation that I could have handled better, and the list goes on and on. Instead of thinking of happy memories, such as the time my cousin and I were dragged to the front of a restaurant during open mic night to perform a song we had written, the first time I got to hold my niece, or even the A in a difficult class, I subconsciously choose the bad memories.
During my performance, I made several small mistakes, which I noticed immediately. To the untrained listener, and even those with training who simply haven't heard the piece, however, it's difficult to hear the mistakes. Instead, they hear the overall beauty of the piece, the big picture, rather than focusing on a few small mistakes that don't matter that much in the long run. This is how it works in life, as well. The people around us aren't paying attention to the mistakes we make (unless they're just rude), or if they are, they don't dwell on them and remind us of them over and over.
As a pianist, and a performer in general, it has taken me quite a while to finally get comfortable with making mistakes. Not to the point of not caring, but simply to the point of not dwelling on them and basing my entire performance on a few mistakes and not taking any notice of the good things I did. During my recital, I was able to recognize the mistakes I made, but I was able to recover from them and not let them get me down. Instead, I focused on the difficult spots I'd been working on for weeks that I had played almost perfectly.
This is how I think it should work in life. Instead of forcing ourselves to relive our mistakes, we should recognize them, fix them or recover from them, and move on with our lives. We should focus on the beauty we create and experience, the areas where we have struggled in the past but finally overcome.
Ultimately, I think we have to understand that there are no perfect performers. Even those who have practiced the hardest and longest and have sold-out shows make mistakes every once in a while. And that's ok. If we can accept them and learn from them, it's our mistakes that make life beautiful.
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Whoo! Two posts in just a few days. I think I'm avoiding responsibility... Only one more week of classes before finals and the end of my Freshman year of college, then off to Ireland!
Wow. I really liked that post, Comma Queen. It really struck a chord with me (pun intended ;) ), because I also catch myself dwelling on how I could have handled situations differently and then I beat myself up, rather than asking myself what I can learn and then recovering.
ReplyDeletePlus, being a pianist as well I *totally* feel ya on the recital part. Isn't it funny how after stepping down from the piano after a performance, everyone's like, "That was amazing!" and all you can think is, "Really? 'Cause it sounded really bad to me!" (Or maybe that's just me.) But as you said, it's good to learn to not base a performance merely on the mistakes, but to look at the big, beautiful picture, too.
Thanks for the thoughts!