Yesterday, I talked about being open to what life can teach us. Today is a new day.
Anything big started from something small. In Jesus' parable of the mustard seed he said, "the Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field; which indeed is smaller than all seeds. But when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in its branches." Although the mustard seed started out as tiny, the actual tree that grows from it is enormous.
This is also true of the potential each of us carries. We're not born inherently god-like at anything, we have to develop our skills. When learning anything we all start with the basics and as we continue to develop our skills the higher difficulty of things we can do. However, sometimes our patience gets the best of us and we want to rush through the fundamental steps. I honestly don't like the initial steps of learning a piano piece. I have to read through the notes, learn to play them in rhythm, coordinate my hands, and repeat it countless times until its incorporated into muscle memory. It's a slow, long, and boring process filled with trial-and-error.
I just want to play the piece and express myself, but unless you're a genius you have to go through those initial steps before you can play well. Although I'd love to skip the baby steps and start sprinting right away I know how important it is to create a strong foundation. A strong start can help make for an easier finish.
In going a step further, one thing to keep in mind is how incorporating little changes in our lives can have a huge butterfly-effect impact on our development. For example, professional pianists spend 8+ hours EVERY DAY maintaining their skills. By comparison I'm dedicating about 1 hour every day. After a year I'd have practiced for 365 hours. The professional who spent 8 hours every day for that whole year would have practiced for 2920 hours. Crazy. It's only natural that they'd be better than I am and it goes to show how something little as spending a bit more time every day doing something can have a drastic impact on our growth.
Imagine that same lifestyle for 10 years. Just like investing and saving money, the accumulation effect from the extra time dedicated practicing translates into immense benefit in skill. We may have started out at the same level at some point, but a little bit every day goes a long way down the road. Incorporated small changes in various aspects of our lives will help improve them tremendously in the future. It's just a matter of time.
Peace
"All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small." Lao TzuWhen I think about my dreams, I think about how hard they are going to be to accomplish. I know that it's going to take a lot of time, effort, and dedication to realize them. In comparison to where I want to be, I'm doing small things in order to build myself up toward being able to do the bigger things.
Anything big started from something small. In Jesus' parable of the mustard seed he said, "the Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field; which indeed is smaller than all seeds. But when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in its branches." Although the mustard seed started out as tiny, the actual tree that grows from it is enormous.
This is also true of the potential each of us carries. We're not born inherently god-like at anything, we have to develop our skills. When learning anything we all start with the basics and as we continue to develop our skills the higher difficulty of things we can do. However, sometimes our patience gets the best of us and we want to rush through the fundamental steps. I honestly don't like the initial steps of learning a piano piece. I have to read through the notes, learn to play them in rhythm, coordinate my hands, and repeat it countless times until its incorporated into muscle memory. It's a slow, long, and boring process filled with trial-and-error.
I just want to play the piece and express myself, but unless you're a genius you have to go through those initial steps before you can play well. Although I'd love to skip the baby steps and start sprinting right away I know how important it is to create a strong foundation. A strong start can help make for an easier finish.
In going a step further, one thing to keep in mind is how incorporating little changes in our lives can have a huge butterfly-effect impact on our development. For example, professional pianists spend 8+ hours EVERY DAY maintaining their skills. By comparison I'm dedicating about 1 hour every day. After a year I'd have practiced for 365 hours. The professional who spent 8 hours every day for that whole year would have practiced for 2920 hours. Crazy. It's only natural that they'd be better than I am and it goes to show how something little as spending a bit more time every day doing something can have a drastic impact on our growth.
Imagine that same lifestyle for 10 years. Just like investing and saving money, the accumulation effect from the extra time dedicated practicing translates into immense benefit in skill. We may have started out at the same level at some point, but a little bit every day goes a long way down the road. Incorporated small changes in various aspects of our lives will help improve them tremendously in the future. It's just a matter of time.
Peace
 |
| As we accumulate our knowledge and skills little by little, we end up being able to do more with it. That's how we grow. |
What are you building up and accumulating in order to realize your goals?
ReplyDelete