One thing many of you may not know about me is that I used to be rather athletic. I was one of the fastest runners in my classes in elementary school, I hit "clean up" in girls' softball when I was 11 and made the town's All-Star team a couple of times and played on my school's basketball team in 8th grade.
I played center on the basketball team. I wasn't the usual starter, but I played in every game. One time I pushed my team into overtime by making a free-throw shot after someone from the other team committed a foul against me in the last minute of the game.
It was a home game, too!
Eighth grade was a definitive period for me because many life-changing decisions were made that year.
For starters, in our career education class we had to do an enormous project about a career we were considering.
At that time, I was thinking about becoming a marine biologist. I was rather obsessed, especially with deep sea exploration. I attended lectures at URI's School of Oceanography all the time. I went all-out for my project and even interviewed someone who worked for the EPA.
At the end of that project, I sat back and said, "That is absolutely fascinating, but I don't want to do it."
It was a full 180.
Around the same time, I seriously considered quitting piano lessons. My thoughts about it were, literally, "I know enough to amuse myself at home. So, I'm either going to quit lessons or I am going to become a professional musician."
You all know which decision I made.
So, it is in this context that my basketball story is set.
I was warming up before the last regular game of the season when I caught a rebound wrong.
I knew I had broken my left index finger because I heard it crack, but I found that so disturbing I only told my coach that I "hurt" my finger. He probably also knew it was broken because it started swelling immediately, but he wrapped that finger to my middle finger and I played the game.
We won the game and entered the play-offs.
By the time play-offs started, I had been to the doctor, and my finger was in a splint. My coach wanted me to play the playoff games despite the broken finger because, although I wasn't a star player, I was still important for relieving our starting center.
I refused.
Breaking my finger awakened me to the reality that I had a choice to make. I was either going to do sports OR music at competition-level.
I had already decided I was a piano player. Now I realized I needed to avoid unwarranted risk to my fingers.
I finished out the playoff season sitting on the bench and decided to forego sports in high school, despite encouragement from my teammates to try out for the high school team.
I have not yet met a high-school level or above sports player who hasn't suffered an injury that caused immobilization of a part of their body for a significant amount of time. Many of them have been music students of mine. When they were injured by sports, they couldn't play their instruments.
Sure, accidents can happen when playing sports casually, but injury is almost inevitable when playing competitively.
I knew that if I wanted to be a PRO musician, flirting with injury from sports could not be part of the equation.
While this story is specifically about sports and music, the broader topic is about priorities and economic cost.
All decisions cost something.
We can't be in two places at once, so every time we choose to be in one place, we choose not to be in another place.
Likewise, we cannot usually take two opportunities that present themselves at the same time.
Economic cost has implications far beyond finances, sometimes ones we don't intend or expect.
We need to choose carefully.
I was a weird kid in the way I understood this at age 13, knowing very clearly that the economic cost of a broken finger was not something I was willing to pay again.
I also knew basketball wasn't really in the cards for me. I was a good player, but not GREAT. And I'm tall, but not basketball tall. I might have done OK in high school, but that would have been the end of the road.
I could go farther with music, and I knew it.
I can't possibly list out all the different costs involved in all the decisions we face daily.
But I do encourage you to consider not only the potential benefits of a decision, but also the cost on the other side.
Is it worth it?
Thank you for all your support!
Happy Music Making,
Heather
