It Doesn't Matter

Today I did something that not everyone would recognize as a victory, but to me it was a step in the right direction. For so long I’ve fallen short of my expectations in some specific areas of my life, but you can’t expect people to know something about you if you choose to suppress it. There’s still so much about my past or ideas I have for the future that very few people know about me, but I don’t like that. I’m really tired of keeping some things secret and being ashamed of what gets me excited. (That’s also one of  my biggest motivations for doing this blog everyday, so that I can get over that fear sooner rather than later.)

So, it’s no secret that my musical journey has been a lot of ups and downs. I’m passionate about music (that’s also no secret) but I keep getting hit with the fact that I still have so much more to learn. It’s just a matter of putting myself out there.

One part of me knows how to deal with sharing content, accepting criticism, and taking risks. That’s a huge part of how I function, but it takes a conscious effort to unlock that part of my personality. On the other hand, when it comes to the things I love most about life my instinct is to hide it and protect it. There’s conflict between what I know and what I feel, but guilt and shame are also tied into the mix. The problem with my musical journey is that every time I know I made a right decision, it hardly ever feels right. It’s because I’m afraid, and as embarrassing as it is to admit that, I also want to call it what it is.

My small victory today was sharing a short recording of what I practiced today on bass. As silly as that sounds, I actually had to force myself to do it because I know that I can’t let irrational fears control me. Every criticism I had over that stupid little recording was getting in the way of me actually sharing it, so I just decided to do it.

​“It’s too short.”

“The audio quality is terrible.”

“People will think it’s weird.”

It doesn’t matter. I got it out there, and tomorrow I’ll do something better.