It’s difficult for many of us to make behavior changes that will benefit us in the long term.

From sticking to an exercise routine to keeping a healthy diet to saving money, we must prioritize the future ahead of our immediate circumstances in order to follow through. This can be very uncomfortable and unnatural, but the payoff becomes evident down the line.

After awhile, we’ve built a new habit and gotten used to this cycle. We learn to associate eating healthy food with feeling good. We come to enjoy the feeling of virtue that comes with following our budget or our exercise plan.

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Ambitious music students always have a “dream” song that they want to learn to play.

There’s usually a piece of it that the teacher can introduce early on, but mastery is sometimes a long way off. The student could spend the next six months practicing that piece of music every day and working on it at every lesson, and it would still sound awkward and amateurish.

As the teacher in such a situation, I guide the student to spend those six months playing a bunch of other, easier songs. Instead of putting all of our effort into one song that won’t showcase the student’s growing ability very well, we play dozens, refining some to a high level of polish and allowing others to stay works-in-progress.

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When my choir first began learning Benjamin Britten’s “Rejoice in the Lamb,” I’m sure I wrinkled my nose — if not in disgust, exactly, then certainly in confusion. 

The angular melodies, abrupt changes in time, the seemingly nonsensical poem that comprised the lyrics — none of it made sense to this high school singer who had grown accustomed to 19th century opera choruses and quietly pretty folk song settings. This was weird and bold and sometimes defiantly ugly, challenging to the ear and the intellect. 

That’s exactly why I fell in love with it — eventually. It grew on me.

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Back when I used to have appointments six days a week, I cherished any time when I could do my actual work.

Teaching music lessons was the fun part, but there was so much administrative stuff that needed to be done, and keeping up was a huge challenge.

I was sinking into a life that had no time for reflection or course correction — I was always running and striving.

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I have always enjoyed card games and board games, from the long summer afternoons spent playing Spit and Spite & Malice with my siblings and cousins to the more recent winter evenings engaging in Euro-style games like Dominion, Catan, and 7 Wonders (again with siblings and cousins, plus friends and in-laws!). Within a game, you create a little world that is continually subjected to outside forces you must reckon with — a cozy version of actual life.

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