Thursday, May 20, 2010

Are you a mover or shaker, foo?

Hey hey!

It's been a crazy good week! I gave my second clinic yesterday to about thirty homeschooled kiddies who aspire to play the guitar. What a great time! I was running up the road to get to my teaching studio, and I decided to stop to get a sub. I'm standing in line at Subway behind two little old ladies who only wanted HALF of a six inch sub, and wanted to know the price of everything, and were in no hurry whatsoever. It got me thinking about several things. a.) would a stray hair curler most likely left in their hair crumble when I smote them for taking up all my time, b.) how nice it must be to have all the time in the world, except of course, that they'll probably die next week, and c.) how it's gotta suck to be old. Ha ha!

And d.) if I ever run for political office, how you guys will either blackmail the heck out of my bank account, or bury me with all these things I say.


Old people don't seem to like the Information Age, and believe it or not, I'm starting to side with them in a roundabout sort of way. Oh sure, I'm a proud shareholder of Google (I have exactly one share), and I have a feeling my fortune will, at least in part, have a .com after all the zeroes on the check!

But information can be insidious in how it robs us of our power of conviction and action. I see it all the time with my students, especially my clients above thirty. They want to learn the best way, and in seeking the shortest path to the top of the mountain, they spend their day reading the map at the trailhead while everyone else already has their hike on!

And this debilitation in the name of research isn't limited to guitar - on the contrary, I see everyone talking about how to be better people instead of actually going out there and doing the work. This is a broad theme that can be applied in many disciplines.

If you can't think of anyone, how 'bout the person reading this blog right now? AW SON! Gotcha! Well, OK, a little training here and there is OK.

But we need to know when to draw the line, stop researching the perfect running stride, and jump on to the track. Hit the ground running! This brings me to a cheesy point and a question:

Are you a mover or a shaker? Do you get stuff done, or stand there trembling, wondering the best way to do it?

(I tend to be the latter, unfortunately.) But you know what? Before you go out to buy a book on motivation...You know all you have to do to make the transition?

Just start.


That's it!


Rock on!

- Josh

1 comment:

Liz said...

I like your points about the information age. I used to work with elderly people (in a nursing home setting) and it was crazy comparing their mannerisms and attitudes with those of my generation. And I'll admit to being a shaker as well, sometimes it's just easier to put things off and let things play out the way they will instead of being assertive.