Wishes and Wisdom

I wished for company. I did not know what 'company' was like, but I knew I wanted it. Life brought me friends who threw me under the bus at the slightest provocation, enemies who taunted and abused me and lovers who soon tired of me. I knew I did not want these things, so I withdrew and thought about the definition of a good friend, and came to know that I wanted friends who would talk and listen, help and accept help, and share of themselves.

I found that there are few true enemies in this world. Most people want to have a good life and don't want to negatively affect others. There are many, however, that feel bad about themselves and try to make themselves feel better by hurting others. I ultimately discovered that I have control over whether I am hurt or not. If external validation is unimportant, then external rejection also becomes unimportant. I learned to ignore negative people and pay attention to positive people. Today I have mostly positive people in my life. They make up my community.

I did not know what it meant to be a musician, but I liked to play music, so I thought it would be nice to play music all the time. However, during the process of becoming a musician my desire to play music somehow got mixed up with my desire to excel at something. I started to measure myself according to how much "better" I was than some other musician. My ability as a musician became synonymous to my self worth. This is known in mindfulness practice as "comparative mind."

I learned that comparative mind always leads to disappointment because relative musical talent is a subjective judgment. Music one person may love, another person may hate. I found that I could only derive happiness from making music if I enjoyed making it and if someone - anyone - enjoyed listening to it. I found that judging my music against the music of others always led to sadness.

Enjoying one's own - or anyone's music for that matter - is a choice. Although a musician may not be technically superior, they may intensely enjoy their musical experience. Choosing to enjoy making music has made the experience much more joyful for me. A joyful musician is able to transmit their joy through their music. People enjoy music made by a joyful musician.

Performance, I learned, is a two-way street. The musical performer outputs emotion encased in sound. The audience receives this emotion and reacts emotionally. The emotional reaction of the audience is transmitted back to the performer. This powerful cycle can be ecstatic when synergy is achieved between audience and musician.

These revelations transformed me from a musician who was seeking performance opportunities into a musician who is sought by performance opportunities.

My father worked hard for his money so I thought that was how money is to be made. I liked working hard; it felt good. Soon more and more work came to me, and it kept coming to me until I was working ten or twelve hour days. Yet I found that I was still less wealthy than I would have liked.

I saw that people who owned businesses worked as hard as I did but made much more money. So I left my job and started a business, and after a few years I found I had doubled my salary. I was working very hard, and had no time for music. The kids were asleep when I left for work and also when I returned from work, and I certainly had no time for friends. I became angry and resentful that I had to work so hard just to provide for my family.

The economy took a downward turn and business dried up. I let my only employee go and worked twice as hard to find new business, but nothing seemed to help. I began to despair, and came very close to losing everything, but at the brink of financial annihilation I got a job. Gradually I crept back to solvency. I felt sad about by my failed dream of having a successful business, but I worked conscientiously at my new job. After a while we were doing okay.

Today I do not have any real problem paying my bills. I am not wealthy, but I have no great want for money. My family is well provided for and we feel safe and secure. We are not rich, but we are not poor.

I learned that nothing is a guarantee for wealth: neither skill, nor talent, nor hard work. If all players at a poker table count cards, it's back to luck who might win, if you believe in luck.

Most importantly, I learned that enough is enough. Happiness comes to those who learn from their mistakes, harbor no regrets, and accept what is.

We make wishes all the time. What we concentrate on, visualize clearly and have faith in, we eventually get. So be careful what you wish for!

I have found that the key to getting what we wish for in life depends primarily on faith and circumstances, and to some degree, effort.

In the words of the Rolling Stones,

"You can't always get what you want ... but if you try sometime, you just might find ... you get what you need."