Burnt Out

Step #1: Realization

When diving into the New Year, I thought about how "stuck" I seem, like my feet are clinging to edge, too scared to jump, like my palms are sweaty with doubt and fear and thought, "Where did I go wrong?" Oh, how I wanted to reconfigure my life so that I could feel like I was plunging forward once again, feel life's cool waters rushing past my skin, to feel like I was speedin towards my goals. Currently, I'm an intern for the Artistic Department at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, as well as, a violin teacher for Allegro Music Classes (also located in Indianapolis). So, you might ask: What part of meeting and working with famous musicians, teaching violin to and learning from children, and not having to go to school every day do you not like?!? The answer is that I love it all! However, I have realized how ineffectively I have positioned myself physically, emotionally and spiritually on a daily basis.

Step #2: Reconstruction

This is the question at large: When and where do I begin? We will all choose how to manage and answer this question differently. To answer the former: I know that I must say that I need to begin now! My journey through life doesn't stop because I turn my back on it or because I stop living and enjoying it; I know, in my gut, that I have to begin now, or I'll never begin. The more I procrastinate beginning to enjoy every moment of life, the more I'll lose, and the more I'll want those parts of my life back later. To answer the latter: For me, I believe I need to begin my journey at the corner of music and playing the violin. While analyzing my daily life at the beginning of 2012, I made a discovery that a key part of my life was missing; so, like a historian, I began to dig and search, to wipe away the dust from my former styles of life sitting in the closets of my memory, and there it was! It wasn't very dusty and it wasn't very old, but it was right in front of me the whole time! The difference between my lifestyle before I graduated and my life now, is primarily that my the former was a life filled with violin! Practicing, rehearsals, listening to recordings and studying scores took up most of my time and now there is left only remnants of that life. Although, I pull my violin out on occasion for myself, it is not a daily task. I find it challenging to muster the energy and motivation to pull it out on most days, not to mention making the time and the concentration to spend working on scales, arpeggios, and solo works. Now, I am reconfiguring! If my focus could include practicing and performing on the violin and truly listening and analyzing classical works, I believe that my ambitions, goals and overall desire for music will boost my morale.

Step #3: Respect

Somehow, I think I wanted to get caught up in life's troubles and normality; but the truth is, I've taken that path for a short time, I suppose to see what it was like, and while it was interesting and different than my former lifestyles, it is not one I wish to return to. When you lay the cards down and see them for what they truly are, you see that as much energy as you may spend towards changing who you are, you could spend all the more energy towards growing the person that is already inside you. Maybe I was fighting my former lifestyle, maybe I thought that, even though, down deep inside, I knew it wouldn't change anything, that this new lifestyle would make me happier than the older one had. Now I know that I was wrong. To get back on track: First, I must respect myself, by not blaming and beating up myself emotionally for taking this "side road," but respecting and appreciating the time that I took off and moving forward with what time I do have. Second, I need to respect my goals; this includes, but is not limited to, striving to reach a goal and sticking with it. I am not vowing to never take another path again, to not be flexible with changes I can not help in life, or to never feel that "burnt out" again, but I am vowing to continue to make music a part of my every day life.