What to do about impatience

by Minim Pro @ 2010-01-04 – 11:27:20
A potential student went to see the Zen Master and said earnestly, "I am devoted to studying your system. How long will it take me to master it."
The teacher's reply was casual, "Ten years."
Impatiently, the student answered, "But I want to master it faster than that. I will work very hard. I will practice everyday, ten or more hours a day if I have to: How long will it take then?"
The teacher thought for a moment, "Twenty years."

One of the unexpected benefits of writing this blog has been the way it has helped me to understand some of my own approaches to music-making and, as I have thought about ways to help readers, I have often ended up helping myself. I am not a huge believer in New Year's Resolutions but if I had to make one this year it would be to be more patient.

Actually, forget that; it's a terrible resolution because resolving to 'be' something is doomed to failure. 'Be' more confident, 'be' more successful, 'be' more committed, 'be' more patient; all of these things are utterly unmeasurable, intangible and therefore impossible to achieve. I touched on this a while ago at the end of this post. At the time, the realisation that we cannot force ourselves to be something and that we can only control what we do was a bit of a revelation for me. Since then, that knowledge has begun to help me in many ways, particularly in accepting what I would consider to be negative tendencies or habits that I wish to break.

I would like to be more patient in my practicing as I have found that I have a tendency not to study new things thoroughly enough to completely master them. One example is that I sort-of-know many more tunes than I know - and I know the changes for many more tunes than I know the melodies.

This is because impatience when learning them resulted in not spending enough time on all aspects of those tunes. My impatience to tackle blowing over the changes to a tune can stop me from memorising the melody; my perceived need to know a lot of tunes can result in me not knowing them well enough. This is clearly counter productive as sort-of-knowing tunes will never make for as good a performance as knowing them. I am fully aware of this and yet my impatience in the past has controlled what I do in the practice room to produce this situation.

The mistake I would have made in the past, and one that I now realise may of us make all too often, would have been to resolve to become more patient. This is impossible and guaranteed to lead to failure. I can't become more patient through resolve any more than I could resolve to become taller. All I can contol is the actions that I take. In this case, my resolution should not demand I be more patient, but simply that I acknowledge my impatience and concentrate on studying all aspects of new tunes thoroughly.

Do you see the difference? Can I force myself to be more patient? Of course not. Can I acknowledge that impatience? Yes I can do that. Can I study new tunes more thoroughly? Yes, I can do that. This is immensely liberating and useful because it stops me feeling guilty for not being able to control the things I am and empowers me to control the things I do. And finally, the most surprising and perhaps even a little ironic part of all this, is the realisation that to change anything about what you are, you only have to change what you do.
http://playjazz.blog.co.uk/2010/01/04/what-to-do-about-impatience-7690210/