Performing

I love to play the piano; it seriously is my whole life! I love when I get new repertoire from my professors because then I can just go practice piano for hours and hours. There is one problem though, that I tend to always avoid and make up excuses for… I get sooooo nervous when people ask me to play, or if I’m assigned to play in church or school for something. I just can’t play in front of people; the nerves are just too much for me to handle. I always make up excuses like, “Oh, I’m going be gone next Sunday”, or “I have to get to class”, or “I need to go do my homework” or something else that sounds pansy-ish. I always chicken out, I mean I wish I could play in front of a crowd because I know I would love it, but I just get to nervous and always cancel or chicken out. So I decided to set out on an adventure to refuse to get nervous and never let them over take my ability and desire to perform again. And what do you know, as soon as I made this decision, a little while later I was asked to play a musical number for ward prayer. Shoot! I didn’t think an opportunity would come up this soon. Maybe I’ll make my goal start in like a month or so when school is over, so I won’t have run into any possible opportunities of people asking me to play. But I knew I couldn’t keep putting off this fear, I needed to ever come it now! So I told my friend that I would play one song and one song only at ward prayer in two weeks.  After two weeks of over practicing for hours and hours a day, stressing, losing sleep, and getting many uplifting comments from my friends to boost my confidence… the day finally came. It was Sunday morning and I headed off to church. After church I ate lunch and went straight to the piano practice rooms. I was in there for hours and almost got kicked out. Before I knew it, it was 7:00pm; I had an hour till show time. I went and ran through my song one more time before heading to ward prayer. I said a prayer before I left and then walked over to ward prayer with my friends. I walked in silence as my friends chattered back and forth. We arrived. From this point on, it seemed like time was ticking at the speed of light.  After twenty minutes into ward prayer, which seemed like 30 seconds, it was time for the musical number, my musical number. I introduced my song, sat down at the piano, hands shaking. I couldn’t remember my starting note, my mind was going crazy and my heart was racing. I finally got myself together, and started playing. I finished the song, and stood up with a load of relief. I didn’t even realize that I had played the whole song perfectly. I turned around to face the crowd and they erupted with applause, some people were even jumping they were so excited about my performance. The biggest grin grew on my face and my group of friends ran up to give me a big hug. I can’t believe I did it, I finally did it. I was so happy that I couldn’t even sleep that night. That day truly changed my life for the better.

            This action was meaningful because it helped me accomplish a huge goal that I’ve been working on for a big part of my life. If I wouldn’t have accomplished this goal, I would still be unable to share my talents with those around me. I’m so glad I chose this action for my comfort zone assignment because since I accomplished this, I’ve played piano for so many people. I now love playing piano in front of anyone and it brings joy not only other people’s lives, but to mine also.