Onwards

My determination to learn guitar was stronger than ever. My search began. I spoke with a few musician friends to proceed with my journey. Most of them appreciated and encouraged me. With an exception of course, a close friend, Ronnie was little sceptical. He was a guitarist himself, though not a professional, he had been playing guitar ever since he was a child and had been performing at a local band as a hobby, "I am going to be honest with you. I am glad that you have decided to pursue a dream. I am going to tell you the bitter truth. Ideally musical instruments should be learnt as children. Our hands and fingers are flexible that time. In this age our fingers are not as flexible, they become stiff. The movements are not smooth. Additionally, throughout the day we sit in the air conditioned spaces, making our bodies stiffer. I am not discouraging you, I am letting you know of a real life challenge. I am facing it too". I appreciated Ronnie for telling me the challenge without a filter. I knew that he was being truthful. Despite telling me the downside, he encouraged me to buy a guitar.

I searched for reviews and visited many shops to find a guitar. As per my musician friends' advice, I decided to buy an entry level guitar. The moment I held the guitar in my hands, I felt that I had taken the "stairway to heaven".

Then was the next step was finding a guitar class. I found an institute where they had been teaching guitar. It was close to my home. I enquired and found our that I could join immediately. I enrolled myself and joined the classes.

As soon as I began the training, I realised that Ronnie had been telling the truth. The trainer too told me that my grip was too firm and my fingers had been too stiff. They had suggested a few exercises to relax the fingers. I had been doing those exercises diligently, yet they were not helping much.

I still continued with my learning. My progress was slow, mainly because of my stiff hands. I had still not given up and I continued practicing. I had completed 3 months of training, the results were not upto the mark. Yet, I made a promise to myself to practice every day for 30 minutes. Little did I know that the promise was soon to be broken.

At my office, I was transferred to a new project. This one demanded more responsibility and additional working hours. Every day I would leave my office around 8 pm and would reach home around 10 pm. Going to guitar classes was impossible on weekdays.

I spoke with the institute and they suggested me to attend the weekend classes. Unfortunately, I used to be so tired from the week's work, that I would have no energy to go anywhere on the weekends. Finally I decided to discontinue the guitar classes.

I thought maybe in future, I would get time to pursue my hobby, but I was wrong.