It’s easy (and fun) to hope for a lucky break.
These statements may all be true. The problem is, lucky breaks are unpredictable, and they sometimes don’t turn up at all.
On December 30th, Sarah and I welcomed our baby girl, Kate, into the world. She’s a happy and healthy baby, our lives are changed forever, and our sleep patterns are changed temporarily (I hope). So far, things are going great.
But right after her delivery, I was panicking. More specifically, I was catastrophizing: noticing something undesirable, then vividly imagining a chain of events leading to disaster. Here’s what happened. It’s very silly.
It’s 12:32 AM, and my wife and are in our hospital room waiting for our baby girl. Sarah’s been in labor for over 24 hours–this kid is taking her time.
What else is new? Anything important can’t be rushed, and it’s not worth investing much energy trying. Better to focus on developing the skill of patience (yes, patience is a skill) than on trying to hurry something that won’t be hurried.
Instead of trying to do more next year, what if you tried to do less?
When we’re new to the world of time management, we enjoy some quick wins. Cutting back from 6 hours of TV each day to 2 hours is going to yield lots of productivity. (I remember this early stage—doesn’t it feel great?) But time-management veterans should focus more on cutting non-crucial goals and obligations. There ain’t more than 24 hours in a day.
I’ve been playing the trumpet since 1998, through high school, college, and a graduate degree in music.
Until today, I’d never gone a whole year without skipping a day of practice. I didn’t think I’d learn much from this yearlong experiment, but I was wrong. Here are three things I’ve taken away from a year of “no exceptions” daily trumpet practice.
Both musicians and athletes have to deal with a frustrating fact of physiology: