I often think of why it’s taken me so long to realize my dream.  I’ve been wanting to be a musician virtually all my adult life, yet I seem to be everything but.

Now, notice the last sentence: “I’ve been wanting to be a musician.”

What does that mean, to BE a musician.  Are you a musician when you have a degree in it?   When you publish a song or a composition?  When you earn money from performing music?  When you don’t have a day job?

Well, I know what my definition was, but now I see that there is a problem here.  I’ve been just focusing on a status, a certain condition I wanted to create.  Which takes the focus away from the very essence of what I’ve always wanted to do.

Why did I want what I wanted, to begin with?

It’s because music meant to much to me.  In my darkest times, music reached out and filled me.  It was an outlet, one faucet attached to the ever-growing tank of rotting muck.  Through its exorcism, I found strength to go on.

And because it gripped me so powerfully, I felt passionate about giving back.  To create music that would offer the same kind of healing catharsis. To create music that finally articulate all the hurt, insecurities, shame, guilt and despair we carry hidden deep inside.  To make music that really channel the depth and the complexity of our darkest emotions — an expression that’s thoroughly realistic and authentic, without a shred of caricaturing or over-simplifying.

That’s what I want to do.

See?  That vision has nothing, really nothing to do with being a musician.  I mean, I already am a musician.  I do not need to change or achieve anything in order for me to start doing the above.  Today, this very moment, I have what it takes to do what I want to do and give it everything I got.  There is now waiting, no need for approval permission.

Yet, for so many years, it was really not about music.  It was about status, about proving something.  I wanted to validate myself, make my desire to make music legitimate by turning it into a recognizable success.

And I’ve been wondering why I make so much more money as a web developer, and doors and opportunities open so easily for me in that avenue, with people clamoring, asking me to do that.  Well, the following lines from The Deeper Secret by Annemarie Postma really articulates what’s going on here:

You are given the things to which you do not attach your ego.  When you free yourself of neediness, then you are ready to receive.

My true vision has nothing to do with achieving anything.  It’s about creating to give.  Yes, it will be nice if it somehow turned into a situation where I don’t have to work other jobs, so I can devote more time to it.  But that’s really not the point.  And yes, it’ll be nice if I get recognized for the excellence in creating music.  But that’s really not the point, either.  The more I focus on the essence of my heart’s desire, the more I lose interest in these accessorial benefits.  And the more I feel amazed that I actually have everything I need to start living my dream today, this very moment.

For such a long, long time, I kept myself from doing it, thinking I needed to meet other conditions.

All I needed, all along, was simply to tear down the wall I had put up myself.

The wait is now over.  My time has arrived.