Compare and Despair

[Dave_Long]

Chatted with a younger guy today about how he had had a few hard times. Now is filled with anxiety & depression about being “behind” in life & how to “catch up” to where he felt he should be. He was comparing himself to the successes his sister and some others had had that he had not.

During the conversation someone used the phrase in the thread title, and I thought it a great, saying that I think relates not just to life in general, but very much to to music as well.

I know I’ve dealt with comparing myself with others’ playing or success in the past and it was usually very counterproductive. It might be how something sounds, who we’ve gotten to play with, speed of learning, or whatever.

Just sharing some thoughts on a simple, easy to remember piece of what I consider good advice to us all.

May you all have a wonderful non-comparative day!

[Stuart.Gamble]

Wonderful advice! I need to remind me self of this daily.

[epjacobs]

As a 76 year-old picker I’ve had lots of time to ponder things. Certainly I’ve observed that there were always plenty of folks around who were more accomplished than I at whatever endeavor I was undertaking. It’s human nature to compare, but not necessarily to despair. We all tend to “recognise genius” in those who are superior in performance to ourselves. The wonderful thing about music is its ability to bring true joy to each of us without regard to our level of performance. I have come to believe that the only reason to despair in life, or in music, is if we find that we have short-changed ourselves in the quality of our effort to reach an end which we feel is important. I guess that it’s the cliche about the importance of the journey, not the destination. Regret poor effort, not outcome. Enjoy!

[Dave_Long]

Well said.
You conveyed a lot of what I wanted to. I simply can’t quite get my point across well in my current condition.

What my point was, I think, is to not get caught in that trap of letting it effect you & get you down like the young man in my first post is.

He felt driven toward super human efforts to over achieve & make up for “lost time”, then became very depressed about the lack of super-achievement he felt he could accomplish… anxiety over the future diminished his capacity to live in today.
If we are trying to live someone else’s life we are missing out on living our own.

thanks for the input & clarification!

[Mike_R]

Nice conversation and great thoughts @Fiddle_wood! I wish you would have intercepted 18 year old me with this info.

All that said, this thread is better than the others.

[JohnM]

All that said, this thread is better than the others.

haha. This thread is beyond compare!

[BanJoe]

Gee, I wish I could post topics as good as this one. This one is right, whereas many of mine are wrong. I’ll never get better at playing the banjo!

(Hey, you’re right! If I compare myself to others, I feel terrible. Unless I compare myself to that person who plays a piano, e.g. my sister-in-law. Then I feel much better. I laugh at her mercilessly as she struggles to play “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.”)

[Dave_Long]

Well, having been the recipient of being laughed at/mocked to my face by more experienced musicians that I really looked up to at the time, I can tell you that there was definitely some serious and lasting despair involved…it just wasn’t theirs.

Being nice or having some compassion doesn’t cost anything. give it a try sometime.

[Scot]

I picked up my first stringed instrument (mandolin) about 3 years ago, at the age of 37. Before that, I played the trumpet; trombone and euphonium. I had a pretty good foundation of basic musical knowledge, but stringed instruments are a whole different animal. Over those 3 years, I haven’t been straight-up ridiculed, but I’ve been surprised at what other people have expected from someone with just months or a couple of years of experience. There has been surprise that I couldn’t chop at 6 months, or improvise a break to a tune at 200bpm at 3 years. I think a lot of experienced musicians forget how long it took them to really be competent with their instrument, or they had the benefit of learning them when they were younger and could dedicate more time to it. I’ve always kept positive about it though, because I continue to see my own progress, comparing myself to… myself. It’s fun to look back at videos from a year or 2 ago, where I thought I was doing pretty good, and seeing how much better I am now. I also recognize that I make the most progress when I practice, and make even more progress when I have the opportunity to join a jam, or a class at a festival. I know I’ve put a lot of hard work into learning to play the mandolin, and I’m thrilled with where I’m at. Thanks to this site and @BanjoBen for being where I am. The bulk of my learning and practice is done right here.

[Dave_Long]

You make some really excellent points Andrew!

[JA1]

In life for me the best approach is just be yourself and find whatever it is your good at. Everyone has something they do well, just have to discover it. Maybe in the search will find more than one hidden talent.

In music just strive for improvement and try and find your own style. When I was learning I always tried and find more advanced players, some were cool while others had egos. I just tried to learn from whoever was around. If people said something derogatory, either to my face or behind my back, it just caused me to try harder. There were times when I called people out if they were always comparing people. Most of the time the negative people were the lessor players who didn’t like anyone who was better than them.