Scattering your talent.

In the last week or so I have been spreading myself thin over far too many things. I need not go into them here because I have spoken of it before. Sooner or later things catch up on us and we discover that we might have been doing a great many things but not doing any of them or all well.

I have also discovered that on doing this you raise expectations that can never be fulfilled. Not only do you let yourself down but you also let others down. 

I remember way back in the days of my youth when I decided to take up trying to play the clarinet. I was attracted to the sound of the instrument and the idea of making music appealed to me. I went along one evening to sign up for lessons. My discovery was that I would have to go every evening five days a week for an hour. I expressed doubts to my father and can hear him even now saying to me, "Nothing that is valuable is achieved without effort."

How true this is, but how I wish he had also told me that spreading yourself thinly over many things do not work either.

Fritz Kreisler, the famous violinist, testified to this point when he said, "Narrow is the road that leads to the life of a violinist. Hour after hour, day after day and week after week, for years, I lived with my violin. 

There were so many things that I wanted to do that I had to leave undone; there were so many places I wanted to go that I had to miss if I was to master the violin. The road that I travelled was a narrow road and the way was hard." 

 Luciano Pavarotti relates "When I was a boy, my father, a baker, introduced me to the wonders of the song. He urged me to work very hard to develop my voice. Arrigo Pola, a professional tenor in my hometown of Modena, Italy, took me as a pupil. I also enrolled in a teachers college. On graduating, I asked my father, 'Shall I be a teacher or a singer?' "

"Luciano,' my father replied, "if you try to sit on two chairs, you will fall between them. For life, you must choose one chair.' "I chose one. It took seven years of study and frustration before I made my first professional appearance. It took another seven to reach the Metropolitan Opera. 

I think whether it's laying bricks, writing a book, whatever we choose, we should give ourselves to it.

Commitment, that's the key. 

But maybe we also need to choose one chair.

Have a great day.