I want to change the world.
OK maybe not the whole world, but who knows? Why should I limit my thinking?
• I want to give of myself fully. I want to share my talents and my creativity with others.
• I want to learn and discover and become a better person. I want to become smarter and more eloquent. I want to sharpen the saw. Body. Mind. Spirit.
• I want to learn to communicate better with my fellow human beings. I want to expand. I want to understand.
• I want to make things and put those things out into the world for people to see.
• I want the things that I make to inspire people to make their own things. I want my creativity to inspire creativity in others.
• I want to help other people. I want to help them to become better trombonists, better musicians, better people.
• I want to share the knowledge that I’ve gained teaching the last 30 years with more and more people. I want to share the tools and techniques that I’ve found to be incredibly useful in my own teaching and playing career with other trombonists and musicians.
• I want to make music. I want to make art. I want to play trombone. I want to play piano. I want to play bass. I want to play guitar. I want to increase my level of mastery on each of these instruments.
• I want to collaborate with artists that I admire and respect.
• I want healthy relationships with people that I love and respect, and who love and respect me.
• I want a healthy, limber and dynamic body.
• I want to be financially rewarded for my efforts. I want my financial life to be stable and abundant so that I can not only feel secure, but so that I can do more for other people.
• I want my life to be amazing. I want to wake up every day and jump out of bed with enthusiasm. I want to be so excited about my life that I can’t wait to get my day started.
That’s a pretty big and intimidating list. I want all of those things, but right now I don’t have a grand plan for my life. I don’t know how to make those things a reality. Many days it feels like I’m wandering in the dark, just trying to figure out my next move. It can be challenging to find the focus and the energy to do anything productive at all. There’s a disconnect between the place that I want my life to be and the place that my life is at the moment.
I think that the best way to tackle a list like that is through radical faith. A complete trust and confidence in the fact that we are all a part of and connected to something that is larger than ourselves. You and I are literally made up of stardust. We are made of particles that have been bouncing around for billions of years. That’s powerful stuff.
Radical faith to remember that because we’re connected to the Universe we have within ourselves the ability to connect with a power that is greater than what we may know consciously.
Radical faith that everything is going to be ok. Having the faith to quiet your mind to be truly in this moment here and now, because right here and right now there is all you truly have.
Radical faith to trust in yourself. Faith that you will find a way or make one. Faith that if you open yourself to the world of possibility you will attract the right people into your life to help you along your journey.
As to me, I’m still trying. I still have hope. I’m still in the game, and that’s not nothing. Objectively speaking I have a great deal to be thankful for. I have a roof over my head. I’m bringing in enough money to pay for my living expenses. I have people in my life who love and care about me. I have the tools at my disposal to make music and to make whatever art that I want to make. All of those are amazing things, and for that I am grateful.
For now I’m going to pretend that I know what I’m doing. Though I don’t know yet how to make the things on that list a reality I’m going to have faith that I will find a way. It’s a big universe and I’m literally a part of it.
I’m still here and I’ll figure it out.