There's no way I can practice every day.
I always get just a little bit sad when I hear those words. Because it's not just about the music.
But all of life.
It's a practice. If we define a practice as something we do every day to build a skill.
We practice staying fit. We practice our diet. We practice managing our finances. We practice being nice to people. Heck, we even have to practice breathing and relaxing.
The problem? School never taught us how to practice.
And that, my friends, is why most people are less fit, healthy, wealthy, or happy than they could be.
On first glance, school and homework could be seen as practices. But, this is different. We go to school and do homework because there are penalties if we don't. There is an element of fear.
But, for the true advancement of society, our children need to practice something that builds a skill over time. Something they do even when no one is grading them.
They need to understand resilience. They need to know what grit is. They need to learn to summon the will to practice even if they are tired and don't feel like it.
An education without learning how to practice has consequences. It teaches our children a dangerous lesson:
If it's not going to be graded, it doesn't count.
It manifests itself like this.
Student: I didn't have time to practice.
Teacher: Did you have time to do your homework?
Student: Yeah.
Teacher: Why don't you just making practicing part of your homework?
Student: It's not the same. (or awkward silence)
Today, it might be "never having time" to practice. Tomorrow, it could be never having time to exercise. Later, it could be never having time to spend with the kids.
Fortunately, the beautiful thing about practicing is that we have a choice.
It doesn't matter what happened yesterday.
We can make the choice right now to start practicing.
We can begin a practice streak. We can decide on a plan. We can make the decision to invest in ourselves and our children, the next generation.
For the sake of our future, let's start practicing.
Right. Now.