For the next several weeks, our Wednesday posts will focus on lessons
learned from 18-year-old Kevin Birrell, a Grand Master at the exalted
game of Tetris. You can read all about Kevin and his accomplishment here.
I find it a little ironic that, of all the weeks this particular topic should come up, it's one that has great personal bearing on my life. Yes, my friends, when it comes right down to it, we've all got a lot of choices to make in life. Some are big and some are small, and some are life-changing.
For me, this has really hit home this week. My son was born just over two months ago, and as part of the Grand Plan for Dan (not a title necessarily endorsed by my wife), we decided that I would become a stay-at-home Dad and raise our son during the days while my wife kept up her job teaching elementary music. The full impact of that decision will come for me on Thursday when I will walk away for the last time from the elementary school that has been like a second home to me for nearly the past decade. I leave behind a place of safety and comfort, some wonderful colleagues who have become close friends, and many, many students I care deeply about and have enjoyed watching grow from tiny clueless kindergartners to mature, intelligent, and witty young adults. In so many ways, I'm not looking forward to it at all.
But like Kevin Birrell with video games, you've got to pick and choose. There's not time enough in the day or in this life for Kevin to become an expert at every video game, so he has to consciously decide which ones he'll devote his time and energy to mastering. The same goes for my life -- I don't have the time, strength, or stamina to be a part-time teacher, a part-time church music director, a private piano teacher, a composer, and a father. Sure, I could technically do them all (and have, for the past two months), but I'll never do any of them as well as they deserve. Something had to give, and this was the choice my wife and I came up with.
Even when we're not facing such life-altering decisions, we have to make the conscious decision about what we'll spend our time and energy on, especially when it comes to being creative. I enjoy composing, arranging, playing piano, and writing fiction. The problem is that there aren't enough hours in the day or enough energy in my body to allow me to do all of them at a high level. I have to decide what I'll spend the best of myself on, and what I'll pursue as a fun side hobby. This isn't to say I can't do them all, I just can't do them all well, not if I want to have any sanity left or any time with my loved ones or time for sleep.
Even when I'm doing my composing, I have to make these sorts of decisions. Just about a week ago I made the decision to temporarily abandon a handbell piece I was working on because I just wasn't feeling it, I didn't have a real use for it in our handbell program at church, and I did have several other composing projects that I had a use and need for in church.
This reminds me a lot of the struggles I've had with learning to say "no" to people who want my time for every little thing that comes along. You can always identify the people who can't say "no" because they wear a look of constantly being frazzled and at their wits' end. By the same token, you can tell the people who haven't made the conscious choice about what to devote their time to and so try to give all their energies to everything they can -- they're constantly busy, always doing something, yet getting nothing done.
The next time you sit down to do something creative (or anything in your life, for that matter), ask yourself if the project is worth doing, and if it's worth doing now. Make the conscious choice to work on your projects, and not only will you be happier and more relaxed at the end of things, but the outcome will be much more what you want it to be.
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