“There’s a labyrinth of voices inside your head, a counterpoint of self-awareness and the remembered sayings of your guides and mentors, who don’t always agree. Sometimes you wish you could go back and ask your teachers again to guide you; but up there onstage, exactly where they always wanted you to be, you must simply find your way. They have given all the help they can; the only person who can solve the labyrinth of yourself is you.”
(From the New Yorker article, Every Good Boy Does Fine, by pianist Jeremy Denk)
Precisely seven weeks ago today was the first day of the next chapter of my professional life. I declared, both in word and deed, to myself, my family and all who would listen that I was stepping into new territory; pulled forward by the energy and possibility of the unknown…accelerated by my own evolving awareness of the limited window of opportunity to make the impact I want to make in the way I want to make it.
Sitting here in my newly fashioned home office looking out on a perfectly brilliant spring afternoon, I reflect with gratitude on my guides and mentors and how diligently, patiently and considerately they have influenced me to get to this place. I am on my own path to mastery because of them and the most important lesson they taught me: that until I learned to look within, to go below the surface of myself and wrestle with and reconcile myself to what I found there, I would continue to grant authority over my life to others rather than claiming it for myself.
I freely admit that there are days when I don’t want the freedom I have earned; that there is great temptation to bask in the guidance of those I have looked up to for so long. And, that if I hold those relationships where they are for just a little longer, I’ll eke out just a little more wisdom and just a little more confidence for the path ahead.
But that’s an old voice tempting me back to the safety of the known. And it’s much softer now. And getting softer every day.
This boy will be fine.
