“What If…?”

When I was in the eighth grade, I was a bassist in the school orchestra.  I love music, I always have and I always will.  But the teacher of the class made music something I loathed making.  I had auditioned for, and was accepted into the concert orchestra at my new high school weeks before and was now reconsidering my decision to continue my music career.

After a couple months off of school over the summer, I had to decide whether or not to accept my position in the orchestra.  My mother sat me down in the living room and asked why I wanted to stop,

“I can’t take it anymore,” I explained to my mom “I just don’t enjoy playing music anymore, it’s so boring.”

I wanted nothing less than to continue orchestra in high school, I thought it would just be a continuation of the boredom I had experienced for the past three years.  But my mom said something that day that stuck with me,

“Fine Ian, quit orchestra.  But next year when you’re thinking about what could’ve happened if you kept playing the bass.”

Hearing this made me think about all of the experiences that I had because of orchestra. I had played in Hill Auditorium, a magnificent music hall famous for holding major concerts in Michigan and worked with a music professor from the University of Michigan.  Could it get any better?

Yes. Yes it could.

My sophomore year I travelled to France to perform at the American Cemetery at Normandy to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of D-Day and three additional concerts in three different churches around France.  The next year, I embarked on a 10-day, five performance tour of China while being able to walk around the miles of outdoor  markets of and climbing the Great Wall.

Trying new things, or continuing to do things you don’t like is difficult.  The uncertainty of the future is enough to deter many people from taking on a challenge.  But if there’s one thing that I have learned in my short eighteen year life, it is that you never know where your next magnificent experience is going to come from. 

This I Believe.