J
Jak Angelescu
Guest
Hey everyone. I know this isn’t necessarily guitar-related, but I see some posts on here that ARE guitar-related, and it brought me to some thoughts. This may get a little personal but I’m hoping others can find use of it.
Roughly the last 8 years of my life, it’s been nothing but a blind blur. When I lived out in Los Angeles, I quickly adapted the phrase “fuck everyone else. If they don’t like what I do or how I do it, I don’t need them.” Because in LA, NO one was satisfied. Yet when I moved back to Kansas City, I had lost all of my friends but my singer. And I was left bone-stripped and bloodied trying to appease my family. For 8 long years, I hadn’t realized how much I was enslaving myself to other people for nothing in return. Not respect, not friendship, not kindness. I was subjected to the horrible truth of “tribal syndrome” that small towns in the Midwest are known for. Slowly yet surely I got rid of that. These last few months have really been an eye-opener for who stays and who goes.
But what about… WHAT stays, and WHAT goes?
I see a lot of students on here feeling low on their progress. I see things like “I don’t have enough time to practice, it’s showing and it’s making me miserable.” The truth is, NO ONE, not even the President, is so busy to where they can’t get in 20 minutes of quiet guitar time. SELF ENRICHMENT time. I have come to learn, that if you feel you DON’T have enough time in the day to have 20 minutes alone to yourself, you should take into account what may need to change. Everyone deserves at least 20 minutes of quiet time to further better themselves. Whether it be 20 minutes out for a jog, learning a desired language, or learning a simple new song, or even just laying down and listening to gentle music.
But the biggest problem I’ve noticed with myself, is I took on far too much that I didn’t need to. And it quickly became more than I could bear.
Please, if you can’t find 20-30 minutes of quiet time for your guitar or anything else, make sure you stand for yourself and allow it to happen. So easily we allow ourselves in this world to be taken advantage of to avoid confrontation. And these last few weeks, I’ve been letting go of certain things I don’t need. I’ve been coming to terms with pushing things aside to make sure i have my OWN time. Fights arouse, nasty things get said, people will hate you for standing your ground and saying, “No, I’m not going to do that. I have things I want to do to make myself a better, more productive person.”
I had a dear friend of mine advise me to do a “30 day self-enrichment challenge”. Where every single day, you take 30 minutes of quiet time to yourself and do something alone that makes YOU happy. And if anyone interrupts, you have to set them straight. Believe it or not, I found myself into day 3 where I could have counted on my hands and toes how many times something or someone interrupted that 30 minutes of quiet time. I also found myself idling a lot. Being so overwhelmed with life that sometimes I would lay in my bed and stare at the ceiling for nearly 2 hours. My brain at the end of the day was so fritzed. I’m someone who invests my entire energy in to those who need help, and unfortunately more often than not it hasn’t been returned to me in any way. I hope none of you let yourself be succumbed to this. If you are, please reanalyze your relationships, your job, your friends, your life. If they aren’t supportive of your personal needs, you should feel strong enough to make the change. You’ll feel a lot better. I know I do. I wasn’t aware of how many selfish people I had in my life until I said, “I need a minute to myself.”
I know this was a personal ramble. And truthfully I feel kind of weird posting it. But I wanted to share my experience with all of you because of some of the forum topics and questions I’ve seen. With this being said, the rest of my 30 days continues on tomorrow and I won’t be posting or commenting. I tried it one time when the studio got busy, but I always tried to find a moment waiting in line at Starbucks or my singer tracking vocals to check in on you guys. I’m still continuing with the lessons but I’ll be socially silent for a while. I hope some of you found inspiration in this. If not, thanks for letting me get it off my chest. Whatever rock in the road you’ve come to, don’t be upset or angry. There’s always a way around it, or over it, or you can pick it up and chuck it out of your way. Just keep going forward knowing that hard work DOES pay off. It always does.
You all are the best, keep rocking out!!!
Roughly the last 8 years of my life, it’s been nothing but a blind blur. When I lived out in Los Angeles, I quickly adapted the phrase “fuck everyone else. If they don’t like what I do or how I do it, I don’t need them.” Because in LA, NO one was satisfied. Yet when I moved back to Kansas City, I had lost all of my friends but my singer. And I was left bone-stripped and bloodied trying to appease my family. For 8 long years, I hadn’t realized how much I was enslaving myself to other people for nothing in return. Not respect, not friendship, not kindness. I was subjected to the horrible truth of “tribal syndrome” that small towns in the Midwest are known for. Slowly yet surely I got rid of that. These last few months have really been an eye-opener for who stays and who goes.
But what about… WHAT stays, and WHAT goes?
I see a lot of students on here feeling low on their progress. I see things like “I don’t have enough time to practice, it’s showing and it’s making me miserable.” The truth is, NO ONE, not even the President, is so busy to where they can’t get in 20 minutes of quiet guitar time. SELF ENRICHMENT time. I have come to learn, that if you feel you DON’T have enough time in the day to have 20 minutes alone to yourself, you should take into account what may need to change. Everyone deserves at least 20 minutes of quiet time to further better themselves. Whether it be 20 minutes out for a jog, learning a desired language, or learning a simple new song, or even just laying down and listening to gentle music.
But the biggest problem I’ve noticed with myself, is I took on far too much that I didn’t need to. And it quickly became more than I could bear.
Please, if you can’t find 20-30 minutes of quiet time for your guitar or anything else, make sure you stand for yourself and allow it to happen. So easily we allow ourselves in this world to be taken advantage of to avoid confrontation. And these last few weeks, I’ve been letting go of certain things I don’t need. I’ve been coming to terms with pushing things aside to make sure i have my OWN time. Fights arouse, nasty things get said, people will hate you for standing your ground and saying, “No, I’m not going to do that. I have things I want to do to make myself a better, more productive person.”
I had a dear friend of mine advise me to do a “30 day self-enrichment challenge”. Where every single day, you take 30 minutes of quiet time to yourself and do something alone that makes YOU happy. And if anyone interrupts, you have to set them straight. Believe it or not, I found myself into day 3 where I could have counted on my hands and toes how many times something or someone interrupted that 30 minutes of quiet time. I also found myself idling a lot. Being so overwhelmed with life that sometimes I would lay in my bed and stare at the ceiling for nearly 2 hours. My brain at the end of the day was so fritzed. I’m someone who invests my entire energy in to those who need help, and unfortunately more often than not it hasn’t been returned to me in any way. I hope none of you let yourself be succumbed to this. If you are, please reanalyze your relationships, your job, your friends, your life. If they aren’t supportive of your personal needs, you should feel strong enough to make the change. You’ll feel a lot better. I know I do. I wasn’t aware of how many selfish people I had in my life until I said, “I need a minute to myself.”
I know this was a personal ramble. And truthfully I feel kind of weird posting it. But I wanted to share my experience with all of you because of some of the forum topics and questions I’ve seen. With this being said, the rest of my 30 days continues on tomorrow and I won’t be posting or commenting. I tried it one time when the studio got busy, but I always tried to find a moment waiting in line at Starbucks or my singer tracking vocals to check in on you guys. I’m still continuing with the lessons but I’ll be socially silent for a while. I hope some of you found inspiration in this. If not, thanks for letting me get it off my chest. Whatever rock in the road you’ve come to, don’t be upset or angry. There’s always a way around it, or over it, or you can pick it up and chuck it out of your way. Just keep going forward knowing that hard work DOES pay off. It always does.
You all are the best, keep rocking out!!!
couldn’t have said it better
