High school regrets

I think one of my biggest regrets (and one of the hardest lessons I've learned) thus far in my life is my experience playing the violin throughout grade school. I was reminded of this just now from witnessing my exasperated mom trying to push my sister into signing up for a sports camp that she adamantly did not want to attend. It was a conversation I knew all too well...

"But Mom, I'm not even good at it! Everyone else is better."
"Yeah, they're better because they go to events like this and practice."
"But I don't enjoy it."
"You don't enjoy it because you're afraid of losing. But once you get better, you'll start to like it."

...and so on. You get the point.

I am not blaming my mom for pushing me all these years to play the violin. Her support, her time, and her discipline were constant reminders for me to live up to a goal, which I think is important to instill in kids at a young age. And there were some good experiences. Some great ones, even. My favorite memories of playing the violin were my times playing in our high school pit orchestra. There, I was actually excited about the music, enlivened around my fellow musicians, and at the end of the day, proud of my involvement within the orchestra and the production as a whole.

But at the same time, I don't think any amount of practice or rehearsal could have made me into a good violin player. And that's because deep down, I honestly never really enjoyed playing it as an instrument the way I was taught. I never cultivated a taste for classical music, I didn't even particularly like the way the violin sounded, and many times, I downright despised the cutthroat, meritocratic structure of youth orchestras. All those years, I never developed the passion or self-motivation I needed to really engage myself with the violin. And all those years, I was too scared and lazy and "okay" with my lukewarm hobby to really do anything about it. So all those years, I would continue along, telling myself that being 2nd violin wasn't a big deal ("all those 1sts were overeager losers anyway"), letting my parents shuttle me to and fro all sorts of orchestras and practices, watching as thousands of dollars went into an effort that I knew at the bottom of my heart would ultimately be fruitless.

I think that if I had been a little more honest with myself and with my parents, I could have salvaged some of all that effort and time into something a little more meaningful. Perhaps I could have realized my disconnect with classical music and taken up a less orthodox style of playing. Or I could have done something completely different and joined the Mock Trial team in high school. Or maybe I would have learned an instrument I genuinely enjoyed listening to and playing. I've recently started to fiddle around (no pun intended...) on an acoustic guitar, and even though I am quite terrible and can only play three songs, I still like and look forward to practicing the guitar because it's more relevant to my interests and taste in music. It's a sort of enthusiasm that I never, ever really established with my violin.

I guess the lesson to take away here, as obvious as it might seem, is that a successful hobby needs to be meaningful to its purveyor. There is really no point otherwise.