Earning My Confidence

In my early teens, I didn’t have much confidence. I wasn’t really good at anything. Although I had good grades in school, I didn’t feel like it was something I truly earned myself.

One of the best things I have ever done in my life—especially at that time—was learn how to play guitar. I started the summer before high school and taught myself over the next few years.

I was terrible at first, just like any beginner. It was hard. My playing sounded horrible, and my fingers would hurt and ache. It was only after months of practice that my playing finally started to sound like music. This motivated me, and with more practice, I got even better. I was hooked.

As I got better at guitar, my social life began changing. I made new friends who also played instruments. We even formed a band together and performed in front of an audience a few times. I started to feel more confident.

Before this, I thought confidence was something that was supposed to come naturally. Learning guitar made me realize that a large part of it comes from putting in effort to prove to yourself that you can learn and get better at something through practice and hard work.

Food for Thought

In the early years of learning guitar, I chased speed and complexity because I thought that’s what would impress people. As I got older, I realized that none of that really matters as much as the quality of the music itself. In fact, I’ve found that most people aren’t impressed by highly technical or complex playing anyway.