Doin' Work

Since I have about 4376795642356472139 things happening in my life right now, I thought it was a good time to add one more and dust off the ol' blog.

The title of this post has been my mantra for the last year or so.

When I took a music business course in grad school, the professor chose to focus on financial management rather than music business, and I've been a better person for it ever since. A book I read back in 2008 called The Richest Man in Babylon was one of the course materials, and for whatever reason, one phrase stuck out to me more in 2012 than it did back then: Make hard work your best friend.

The demands of the leave replacement job in Oregon forced me to learn to work better under pressure, react to unexpected situations, and become acclimated to a completely different way of music education. It ultimately instilled me with a tremendous amount of confidence in my ability to teach anywhere, at any level, under any circumstance. It was also the first professional experience in my specialty area. So, when I returned to New York, I had a much more impressive résumé, and interviews became cake for me, since I knew I could answer whatever questions were being thrown my way.

So last week I started my third leave replacement job since then, with previous stops in Westbury and Locust Valley. The current position is Orchestra Director of two elementary schools in Elmont. I'm much more optimistic about the long term prospects of this job, but I won't say more until there's more to say. It's been another baptism by fire, but I'm managing it quite well so far.

I also work at a music store, maintain a private studio, perform in an orchestra, play in a rock band called Make This Life, I'm training for a half marathon in May while fundraising for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and I also try to have a social life.

Currently I'm looking for ways to simplify things. But the truth is, these are all things that make me happy and these are all things that were missing from my life until recently. Most importantly, they keep the gears turning. For whatever reason, idleness is poison to me.

My short term successes are nothing compared to my long term goals. But I can see the path to my long term goals more clearly now after putting in the work, one day at a time.