Maybe You're Not As Good As You Think You Are

 

In a world that often encourages us to be our own biggest cheerleaders, with meditation, positive self-talk, and an entire field called “positive psychology”, it was a sobering thought for me to consider that I might not be as exceptional as I believed. I learned this lesson from my revered high school orchestra conductor in my senior year of high school, aged a tender18.

When Mr. Wolfman retired after 36 or 38 years with the Appleton Area School District, I wrote a letter to the editor of The Post Crescent to somehow commemorate what was a long, steady career of inspiring students, challenging students, having high expectations of students, and demanding it from us. All the while playing some of the most difficult, well-known, and eclectic classical music.

Every spring the orchestra played a Commencement Concert at the Lawrence University Chapel. This was an opportunity for seniors to audition to solo backed-up by the entire West/East High Schools’ symphony. As a senior cellist, I yearned to solo. And I didn’t want to play any cello concerto, I wanted to master the Dvorak cello concerto; a big, intense concerto that puts all others to shame.

I was confident that my passion for great music, especially the Dvorak, and the surprising progress I had made as a cellist since my first year in the high school orchestra, were going to be enough for me to claim that coveted solo.

My audition was appalling. I had started butchering the concerto in January. The concert was in mid-May. I took weekly private lessons with a music ed. major at Lawrence and after our first month in, I could barely play the first three bars. He asked, “Are you sure this is what you want to play?” I was adamant. In my mind, I had mastered everything I tried and if I recognized that a skill, a project, or anything else in life was something I couldn’t master, I threw it in the “Disinterested” bucket. That maladaptive thinking is what kept me trudging on, week after week, Dvorak, I imagine now, screaming from his grave, “STOP HER!” to the universe.

When the list of soloist’s names was taped to the inside of the orchestra room door my name wasn’t there. I felt an aching hurt in my soul. I cried in front of the entire symphony then ran from the room, not returning for rehearsal that day. I didn’t know I was on the cusp of learning a great life lesson.

Later, my conductor said to me, “I think you got so emotional because you’re not as good of a cellist as you think you are, and that's ok.” Well, that’s a hard smack of reality right to the forehead. It stung like hell…but it was true.

The lesson I learned that day is that life is not fair, and sometimes we’re all not as good as we think we are…and that’s ok. No matter how much of the spirit of the music I felt, how much I believed in myself, how much passion I exuded, I had to reconcile with my “Disinterested” bucket. I had to take every piece of failure out of that sloppy, long-ignored pail and own it…and it’s ok. I needed to learn from those failures instead of burying them. I needed to learn that true success can only come from attempting, failing, reshaping my efforts, and attempting again.