Patience is hard.

My friend told me a few weeks ago that anyone who plays an instrument has patience, or is to a good extent, very patient.

This is me affirming today that because learning an instrument will first test all the patience you think you have, then still teach you patience by force in the areas you’re lacking.

Yes, when learning to play an instrument, you need to be patient with yourself and give it time. Most times, if you’re not being self taught, you’re instructor will tell you to go easy on yourself and give yourself the time needed. Even if you’re learning an instrument on your own with the help of videos on YouTube for instance, you’ll most probably hear them say in their tutorial videos that you need to give yourself time and just keep practicing. And it’s understandable because you can’t learn it all in a day. It takes the two major things: time and practice. Consistent time and practice, to be specific.

Now, I don’t exactly have a problem with that, only that it’s frustrating and upsetting when you’re not moving at the pace you wanted or making as much progress as you would have preferred. Not to mention that at the point of frustration, you won’t do better or learn faster than you did before, especially if you reacted by putting too much pressure on yourself. If anything, you’ll end up getting more pissed at yourself, then taking a much needed break to calm down and pull yourself together.

So yeah, this is me saying yes, learning an instrument will teach you patience. You either develop patience or give up. Either way, you’ll be humbled😂, or maybe it’s just me😂.

A friend of mine would always tell me to channel my frustration into being better, and not by putting unnecessary pressure on myself but by remembering that I can’t know it all in one day, practising daily, giving it time, and taking it easy on myself. That way, progress is guaranteed. It may be slow, but it’ll be there. It’ll be evident in the end.

So patience may be hard, but is there any process in this world that doesn’t take time? Time spans may vary, but it doesn’t change the fact that there’s in fact a time span. And when something is bound by time, we must exercise patience. I must exercise patience. I don’t have a choice, like my friend would emphasise, lol. Good things take time, they say…