Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Tree’s up. This year will be my 64th Christmas. That’s crazy to me. I don’t feel 64 at all. I guess I’m wired to think younger than I am. You’re either climbing or you’re sliding, right? And too many people start telling themselves what they can’t do once they hit a certain age. Age does take its toll on the body, no matter how healthy you are. It can certainly have adverse effects on the mind as well. But we don’t need to speed up the aging process by thinking ourselves old or incapable before our time. The mindset of a beginner is hard to maintain once you feel like you’ve “mastered” something. For instance – if I decided I wanted to learn how to play tennis, as a beginner I’d be open to everything. Because I don’t know anything about playing tennis, right? So I’d be willing to listen and try things as I learn. Then once I start learning the game, maybe even getting good at it, I’d have my own way of doing things and I’d tend to not be so open to trying things a different way. It’s like that with almost anything we do in life. As a musician, I grew up playing bass with my fingers. There was no “slapping” the bass back then. Nobody was two-handed tapping at all, either. And I played in rock bands, so even when people started doing those things I never really needed to learn them at all because there was no use for it in the bands I was in. The last few years I’ve been trying to learn these techniques, and it can be extremely frustrating – because I can already play finger style, but when I start learning these new methods I’m terrible again. I mentally go back to 1974 when I was first learning how to play. It’s way easier to just play with what I already know. But where’s the growth in that? Certainly I can always improve from where I’m at. But once we know how to do something, learning a new way to do it can be frustrating because of the step back we have to take when we learn anything new. So we can just form ruts and stay there, and tell ourselves we’re set and stop being open to new things and experiences… nope, not for me. We’re all free agents in the game of life, always. Every second of every day – we get to decide who we are, and what we believe we’re capable of. I think we’re all capable of things we don’t even see at all. So why don’t we spend time thinking big? Thinking of crazy things we could do? Expanding our possibilities, even if we never do any of them? Isn’t that better than living in the world of “Groundhog Day”? We could move to another country. I’ve always wanted to do a solo album – but never seriously got started, why not? I have everything I need to record at home, but I have no idea what I’m doing – so I don’t do it. Learning new things can come with a lot of trepidation. Sell everything and just travel the country for a while, that’s something I’ve seen people do. Scary to do it though – seems like there’s no “lifeline”. But what a life experience that would be. Run a marathon. Write a book. Start a new hobby. Start a new business. Why not? Fear? Fear is the worst life strategy you can have. You think I wasn’t full of fear when I started my own company last year? You’d be wrong about that. It’s scary as hell. No guarantees at all. But – where are you at within your soul? Do you spend time there? If so, are you listening? When the Universe installs a pull in any direction that is palpable, one that you can’t escape from, it’s there for a reason. Be open. Always. Be young at heart. Be a beginner. Create an amazing life for yourself. I’m sure many of you already have done this, but there’s no reason not to keep creating right up until the end. David Bowie recorded his last album while he was dying of cancer. He died two days after it was released. That’s incredible to me. That’s focus and determination on a whole new level. “I’m dying – let’s make one last album before I go”… wow. We’re all dying, unfortunately. We better get to work on whatever it is we’re being driven to do. Nobody else will do it for us. The part of us that says we can’t do it? When we’re living from that part of our minds, our life will be “sliding”, not climbing. Climb as long as you can. The possibilities are endless…
