Life is all about learning the Fiddle....

No matter the story, the tale, or the movie, there is always a winner — the hero or heroine, the guy who finally gets the girl, the long-suffering chef who keeps their head down until one day they earn their own kitchen. But despite what we’re taught, there isn’t always a loser.

Sometimes, yes, someone has to lose.In sport, there is usually a winner and a loser.In a fight, the same.And sometimes, even in love, someone walks away with the short straw.

But in life overall, “losing” isn’t always what it seems.

“Life is a fiddle” can be interpreted in many ways — and all of them can be true. Life, like music, requires patience, learning, practice, and the ability to make mistakes without giving up. Success is rarely simple or straightforward. The real key to life — and to success — is learning how to “play the fiddle”: how to make things smoother, how to avoid repeated mistakes, how to get the result with the least stress, effort, or conflict.

Music has always been a huge part of my life, and just like life, music doesn’t have a true loser. Sometimes music defeats you for a while — a wrong note, a stubborn chord, a tune you can’t quite master — but it’s always temporary. The ones who become great are simply the ones who keep learning, keep trying, and refuse to give in to the small defeats.

I started learning guitar more than ten years ago, and even now I’m still learning — and I will be, for as long as my body lets me. More recently, I began learning the fiddle/violin, and honestly, I’m terrible. Truly awful. But I’m enjoying every second of being terrible, because I know that, just like the guitar, there will come a day when the sounds I make will finally be bearable. And every scratchy note is one step closer.