Apparently, I was once able to play the piano. After three years of practicing, using lead sheets with chord symbols, I became a passable accompanist. I could fake it in almost any key for uncomplicated songs. I had begun to pick out the melody with chords. Many times I wondered if this is was a thing I could ever do. Would it ever be worth the effort? Often I did it only because I thought it might be something God wanted. I knew I never would advance if I did not take the little steps. I did not actually know that God wanted me to do music, but I didn’t think he wanted to keep me from doing it. The little practice times over the three years added up to a useful capability.
This showed me I need to press through the failure. I need to turn my mind from a failure onto the goal, whatever it may be. I need to overcome, overcome, overcome. Overcoming is not pretty and glamorous, it does not even feel virtuous or victorious at the time. However, holding onto memories of failures or incomplete successes will drain the strength out of your overcoming effort. What might not seem to be significant, or full of a lot of value, is further diminished by the discouragement of remembered failure. It’s a deception to focus on the allusion of the unimportance of an overcoming task. We want our buckets filled with a sweeping, dramatic, Hollywood style push. We want it filled now, not tomorrow, not next week, but now. But most of the time our buckets are filled one drop at a time. No drops, no filling.
In the years since I have not continued to fill the bucket. I have not laid hands on a keyboard. I don’t remember the key signatures anymore. I think it would take considerable effort to get back to the minimal skill I once had. Now what am I doing? I am remembering my failure of keeping to the little steps, and it has drained my overcoming effort. Will I ever play the piano again?
