For many years, I made plans to get closer to music. Looking back, I realize that the biggest thing missing from those plans wasn’t music itself. It was life.

My plans had study hours. They had goals. They had to-do lists. What they didn’t have was any room for life.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was quietly carrying a hidden assumption:

“If I want it badly enough, my plans will work out.”

When I was younger, I believed there was a specific sequence to reaching music. First I would create the right financial conditions. Then I would study. Then I would start creating my own work.

It all seemed logical. It all seemed perfectly reasonable.

The problem is that life is full of things that never make it onto a calendar. Financial struggles. Health problems. Loss. Unexpected events that arrive without warning.

When plans stop working, people often blame themselves before questioning the plan. I did the same.

• Am I not disciplined enough?
• Do I not want it badly enough?
• Am I not committed enough?
• Am I simply lazy?

Over time, I realized that during many of the periods when I thought I wasn’t making progress, I wasn’t actually struggling with music.

I was struggling with life.

The problem wasn’t laziness or a lack of commitment. More often than not, I was ignoring the weight of what was happening around me. I was tired. I was dealing with crises. Sometimes I was simply trying to get through the day.

After years of living this way, and especially after losing my father, I found myself questioning many of the assumptions I had carried for so long.

I began to understand something that now feels obvious:

Life is what happens while we are busy making plans.

Life doesn’t move in a straight line. It contains setbacks and breakthroughs, darkness and light, often arriving side by side.

For a long time, I believed that life kept getting in the way of my plans. There were even periods when I thought I was simply unlucky.

Today, I see it differently.

Life wasn’t ruining my plans. My plans weren’t making room for life.

What helped me reconnect with music wasn’t becoming more disciplined or forcing myself to work harder. I don’t think I’m more motivated today than I was years ago.

Maybe the problem was never a lack of desire.

Maybe the problem was believing that life should unfold according to my plans.

And perhaps building a creative life begins when we stop seeing life itself as an obstacle standing in the way.

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Featured image by Hanna Lazar on Unsplash.