Many of my readers know that for a significant part of my life, I wanted to be a successful musician.
I sang, played guitar (sort of) and wrote songs; hundreds and hundreds of songs.
And my perception of what I sounded like back then was something less than what I wanted to sound like.
I’d hear other singers (many of whom were popular in the 90s and early 2000s) and I’d hear this raspy quality that I wanted to have for myself.
Mind you, I wasn’t a trained singer, I just loved singing.
Over the years, due to age and likely due to the damage I had done to my body through drug abuse, my voice did change and I did indeed get a raspier quality to it.
And once I achieved it, it wasn’t quite the way I wanted it to sound.
It wasn’t raspy the way I heard or wanted to emulate in others, it was (in my opinion) this edgy, sometimes pitchy raspiness.
And I’d record songs and play them back and find that maybe I just didn’t like the sound when I finally had the ability to achieve it.
I also found that I was far less unforgiving about the sound of my voice. So much so that it made it more difficult to sit down with my guitar and play for pleasure anymore.
I find that people regard their bodies (and to a further extent) their “ideal weight” in a similar fashion.
Perhaps once upon a time, you weighed X, and you believe in your heart of hearts, that getting back to that weight would give you happiness and restore your sense of self esteem.
But our bodies change over time, as they naturally “should” and, I hate to say it, but there’s a chance that the body you’re trying so desperately to get back to isn’t a body that you can maintain without making yourself miserable in the process.
I don’t ask potential clients anymore about what weight they want to get to because the reality is 1) they may not be willing to do the work it takes to get there 2) they can live a more fulfilling life somewhere north of their ideal weight 3) what they think they should weigh may no longer be a “healthy” weight.
What many people invariably find is that if they are successful at getting to that arbitrary number that perhaps it just doesn’t “wear” like it used to.
And that can be a profound disappointment.
So, the adage “the grass isn’t always greener” applies here. Sometimes the reality we think we want isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
As for me, I’ll take the nuances of my raspy, edgy voice and make the best of it…as I hope you’ll do on your journey of self improvement.
