Getting The Best of Myself

I have a habit of letting myself get easily frustrated. Everything could be absolutely fine, but I'll let one little thing work me into a complete tizzy until I'm a sulking mess. Most of my personal drama comes from this.

Tonight, the frustration started as I tried tidying up the house. I kept seeing a million things that probably could be taken care of but I couldn't tend to right at that moment because I had other stuff on my to-do list to accomplish. And when I came across something that had to be done that wasn't on that to-do list (putting dog's bed in washing machine because he had an accident), I let that get to me too.

Naturally, going into practicing violin with this attitude was grounds for FAIL. I dutifully popped the Broadway soundtrack of "The Producers" into the CD player, opened my book to the first in a list of songs I wanted to practice and hit play. My determination turned to confusion as I tried to figure out why my notes didn't sound like they were in the same key as the CD, and then I found a spot where everything sounded "right." By that time, I had run out of music but the song was still going merrily along in the CD player. I flipped forward and back and tried to see if I could hear where the hell I was supposed to be. I decided after no success to try the next song. That went better but I still was having trouble following. The next song, I simply listened to see if I was nuts and still had a hard time following.

Of course, by this point I had decided I was a total hack of a violinist, was wondering why no one had told me before, and then started getting mad at people for not being honest and just telling me I suck. See? Totally unreasonable.

Matt gave me that look when I went upstairs to pout, "You know you just need to practice some more. You're not going to get it the first time or third time off. I thought you said rehearsal had gone okay."

I stomped away at this point and did some menial task to calm down. Then I decided that since writing seemed to be going well for me the past couple days that I'd blog.

I really need to find a way to not let myself get this frustrated. It's counter-productive and childish. The last time I had one of these moments was when I had to teach myself how to use Audacity to create the music soundtrack for the Labor day Festival Fireworks. That time, I kept at it. I made myself go back to the project and just keep at it. In the end, it worked out. I just need to find that inner push to not let the negative thinking kick in and throw me off course.