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If I Had Had The Mindset Of Today When I Was Young, I Would Have Become A Musician

Many of our teenage dreams have failed because we did not know then what we know today. Sometimes we want to travel back in time to make it better - with the knowledge of today.

By René JungePublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Photo by Austin Neill on Unsplash

We wanted to play on big stages and make the masses go crazy. We were seventeen or eighteen when we formed our band.

We didn't think it was going to be easy then. We knew that nobody was waiting for us.

But we didn't know what it really means when something gets hard.

When you're seventeen, you still think that mowing the lawn in the garden or delivering the newspaper on Saturday is hard work. You don't know what it means to commit months and years to a mission and put all your energy into it without seeing the slightest sign of success and still carry on.

So it came as it had to happen. We played together for two or three years, and at some point, the band split up. All that remained are memories and two or three faded posters with concert announcements.

During my years in the band, my guitar skills didn't improve much. I was just too lazy to practice devotedly.

None of us seriously tried to get big gigs.

We didn't make an effort to increase our fanbase. In fact, we did nothing but meet for rehearsals and gigs.

We thought maybe someone would discover us. By chance, an agent of a record company or a radio DJ might hear our music.

Of course, none of that happened. We never really expected it either.

But we were wrong. These things do happen. But they only occur when you give it your all and are always present for a long time. Then you are discovered by the audience, and only then can the significant strokes of luck occur.

As a writer, I learned all this later and have been following it for years.

If I had pursued my dream of being a musician like my dream of being a writer, I would be a musician today.

I would have dedicated myself to becoming a musician instead of daydreaming about a wild rock star life. I would have practiced on the guitar every day, written lyrics every day, and hit every club in the city to get gigs.

I would have worked with other musicians to learn from them. Later, when the internet became a big thing, I would have uploaded videos to YouTube and built a fanbase.

I would have bought free but powerful music production software and learned how to use it.

I would have made music on the street, had my CDs pressed, and sold them, and I would have put every cent I earned into teaching and better equipment.

If I had done that for many years, I would have a priceless treasure of experience, knowledge, and skills today. My network and my fanbase would be vast, and I would be invited to festivals by now instead of waiting for me to apply.

When you are young, you still have dreams, they say. But the problem is that most of the time, you only have these dreams, but no plan. When I was young, I needed the experience I have today. I would have required the knowledge and confidence that hard work and time lead almost inevitably to success.

At over forty, it no longer seems so intimidating to wait five years for a first success when I start something new. At seventeen, a five-year perspective would have been unimaginable for me.

So we should not be too hard on ourselves when we look back and realize that we have not fulfilled our teenage dreams. We simply did not know any better then. No time machine can bring us back so that we can do everything again but better.

But there is one thing we can do: If we realize we're still dreaming that dream from back then, we can do better today. Why don't we dig up the old dreams again and commit ourselves to the process of moving forward along this path?

If we start today and make a real effort, in five years' time, we will be closer to our dream of then than ever before.

What old dreams have you forgotten that you would like to revive?

Write them down and think about the first step you need to take to live your dream. And then take that step.

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About the Creator

René Junge

Thriller-author from Hamburg, Germany. Sold over 200.000 E-Books. get informed about new articles: http://bit.ly/ReneJunge

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