Changing Minds

Last fall, I decided to learn to play the cello.

The depth, the slightly melancholy, lilting sound pulls at my heart strings and I wanted to learn how to create it.

I found an instrument, a friend to play with who was also teaching me, and I included it in my daily practice. The set up was perfect and I wasn't even half bad! But my habits were slipping, I was starting to resent my bow, and kept trying to find excuses for cancelling my lessons. ...I was miserable.

Playing the cello felt like parallel parking a stick shift up a hill on the wrong side of the road. The level of complexity meant the sound I was looking for would elude me for years, and that is a long time to only live on the words "I play the cello" without having fun.

So I quit.

And I immediately began preparing answers for the inevitable questions that come when you change your mind.

But then I stopped myself. My reason for quitting was perfectly reasonable: I'd rather be happy doing something than sticking with it just to say I did.

I am not unreliable or fickle for not wanting to continue on a path that makes me miserable or has no purpose. On the contrary: if something isn't working, it is my responsibility to course-correct.

We have this deeply ingrained, patriarchal view that once we've made up your mind we must never change it again.

But that is the height of inefficiency.

It's testing a product, realizing it doesn't work, and then continuing on producing it because we said we would. How silly would that be?

I'd rather we change our minds often to get to know ourselves and others, learn how to check in and listen. We'd be more adaptable, inspired, and efficient.

And – we'd be happy.