For the last week at 7am I’ve been giving my 13-year old Daughter, Mary Inger, guitar lessons. She has a treasure trove of lyrics and is desperate to play the guitar and create music for them. I told her if she was ready everyday at 7am I would teach her, and she has been faithfully waiting for me with a tuned guitar every day since. She doesn’t know it, but besides learning how to play the guitar, she is learning to live.
When we started, she knew nothing. Today, just 7 days later, she can play 3 chords, G-C-D, and is on her way to strumming and eventually putting music to her lyrics and melodies. And remember this, she is 13 and started a week ago with nothing but desire.
And that is life. We can make happen what we desire if we take those first hard steps. As we get older, leave high school, and enter the stream of life, even little dreams can seem daunting. For a lot of us, not only don’t we take those little steps, we stop believing we can. Learning to live begins when we can look in the mirror and be honest about how we are living, or not living.
The addictive nature of technology has made it even harder to dream. It is much easier to watch a video of your favorite artist than to learn the guitar yourself. It is much easier to watch a home improvement show than actually improve your home. It is easier to watch Bachelor or Bachelorette than to do something to find true love yourself. Show me a human zoned out on a “smart” phone, and the chances are you are looking at someone doing nothing more than being distracted like the proverbial hamster in a running wheel. Doing a lot, going nowhere.
It can start with just three fingers and three strings. G-C-D are all played that way, three fingers on three strings and you can fake almost any pop song ever written! The real hard part, the first couple weeks when your fingers hurt and don’t go where you want them. Get past that and you are on your way. One day you are sitting on your couch glancing at Facebook for the hundredth time. Two weeks later, you are rocking out. Just like most things in life. Pick it up and you are making music, let it sit in the corner and it’s just a piece of wood.
I’m not anti-technology. The web and my Mac are what allow me to reach you with this post. Technology has made recording music affordable with incredible quality. But I am anti-humans as sheep. Technology should be a tool, not the meaning to our life. And while no one would probably admit, “technology is the meaning to my life”, many live that way.
So live a little. Learn 3 chords. Buy some paint brushes. Dust off those old hiking boots. Take down the bike and go for a ride. It is good to be alive. Take a few steps today and feel that way. Learning to live should be fun.
If you’ve been motivated to play a little guitar, I recommend the following website, almost as good as private lessons, and I have used it to great effectiveness myself. We all need our own guitar guru!
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