Hi there!
Greatness is also about trial-error. Lots of it. The same as you, I always love music and practiced classic guitar when I was a kid but didn’t push myself because nobody in my family ‘encourage me’ to do it (that’s when the environment comes in) but always kept that passion for the strings, specially the bass guitar. Later on, at university, with some friends we began to play folkloric music and I was in charge of the percussions. After some years the bass player decided to resign due to personal reasons and a personal project with his wife. So I decided myself to take the challenge and pick up the bass. It has been one the greatest decisions in my life regarding music but it cost me sweat and blood(literally), a huge amount of frustration to learn how to play it. I felt ashamed when performing with other bands but in time, the same as you, I could do things that never in my life possibly thought I could. My ex told me ‘you’re doing it great!’, other friends who play the bass told me the same, so yeah, I was good at something but it wasn’t sure if I want it for a living and pay bills.
Some years ago, got my BS in education and really like and still love the classroom and everything you find in it but different circumstances force me to make a decision, in order to improve my financial, working and mental health. That’s when I decided to study programming. It was and it is still today something very difficult to understand and comprehend and be proficient at, regardless the fact that my relationship was broken about a month before marriage, a week prior three (yes, three) evaluations in college and my moving to my parents house after 4 years out, but perseverance is the key.
Everybody at college thought I would drop the career but a teacher gave a lecture on how to keep moving forward. That’s something very important and hard to understand for most of us, perseverance. After my first year of slamming my Mac and cursing everything around, I found my passions in life: teaching and coding. The best thing is that I can make a combo and be an IT teacher. Your personal greatness does not come in an slap. It takes time, sweat, tears, broken heart sometimes, long nights, no sleep, enormous amount of frustration and gigantic desires to drop everything but fear not. Your goal is straight ahead. You just need to open your mind and your eyes and feel in your heart, listen to it and follow (fight) for your dreams and greatness will come in bits.
Thank you for your article. You make me remember the last 6 years of my life.
Cheers from Chile.