As an on off trumpet player (currently off) I understand only too well the value of repetition.
No matter which instrument you decided to play there is no shortcut cut to proficiency, the repeated strumming, picking, blowing or drumming is an inescapable essential in the bid to rise above the most basic level of playing.
There is nothing deeply profound in my thinking today but in a bid to remind myself of these things I am sending them out there to encourage you to keep going.
The repeated action of anything that we do will ultimately have a result in our lives.
I have presently embarked upon the earlier rise to fit more work into my week. Day two is a little tiring but by day four of the week it will be a struggle to stay awake past 9pm. By week four the steady erosion of sleep will be starting to catch up and if it continues unchecked will result in grumpy exhaustion.
Knowing this from previous experience it behoves me to ensure that something is put in place to stop the gradual undermining of sanity.
But we don’t.
Live and don’t learn, that’s us!
So it is my responsibility to do it differently this time, not yours or my wife’s……mine. That is the part we don’t like, we want to have it all and deny ourselves nothing. I want to be John Coltrane without spending hours with a trumpet attached to my lips. I want to have the money in my bank account without putting in the hours, we all do, but that isn’t reality.
After just three weeks at the gym (last week doesn’t count as I never made it there) I have seen a marked improvement in my body. I can now row a kilometer in 5 minutes without a problem, when I first went 600 metres was a push, the dull ache in my lower back has also diminished greatly. I only realised that yesterday. Just a 40 minute routine, three times per week has made a definite difference, I never disparage anyone in the gym, if they are there they have decided to change.
Repetition is a dirty word on social media. Every other person posts quotes about living free over a picture of an open road or a beach, or a mountain vista. This is just a pipe dream unless you are independently wealthy. I too harbor these dreams but reality kicks in and I slowly realise that they come at a cost.
Living on a beach is not living free unless you yourself are free, all that you now are goes too. Furthermore, what do you eat? Fish don’t jump out of the sea on to your plate, vegetables don’t grow themselves, what happens when you get sick or run out of water, do you have a helicopter to take you to help?
The thing with repetition is that we are built to do it, you can’t just eat, sleep, drink, poop, go to work, pay bills change a nappy, kiss your patner, pray, excerise, only once!
No matter where or how you live you need to do a certain number of things every day just to survive and the the thing that we grow to despise is the very thing that causes us to exist and grow.
Our choice is what we grow into.
Everything tends towards chaos if left to its own devices, our garden was a jungle after 30 years of neglect when we bought our house. Nobody did that, nobody did anything it just happened over time, it has taken a long time and a lot of effort to return it to a measure of order.
Don’t despise repetition it makes us who we are, our choice must be to use it and introduce good practices which over time will produce good results.