Ten years ago, I attended a party and had the pleasure of hearing a child sing. I warmly recall watching my friends five–year-old daughter bounce into the center of the room excited to entertain us. She sparkled with absolute confidence as she sang Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. This little gal hit many of the right keys and many clunkers, but we saw her as pure joy with the voice of an angel. She beamed with radiant glory as she shared her newly found gift and love of singing. We gave a thunderous round of applause and she bowed with delight.
This week, I was back at my friend’s house and the group was hoping to hear this same ‘not so little’ girl sing for us. We’ve known from the start she is highly gifted and we were hoping to hear her piece that received a first-star at the state level competition. But despite our gentle coaxing, the young woman shook her head and claimed she wasn’t prepared. WHAT?? She has had five years of voice training, sung the lead in the school musicals, competed against kids older than her and won! How was she NOT prepared to sing for us? What happened to the joyful, confident five-year-old?
Life happened. Somewhere along the way the pure, radiant joy she experienced sharing her natural gift, became conditional. It began when she heard some of her pitches were flat and needed perfecting and worsened when she started to compare herself to others. And now the girl with the ‘voice of an angel’ will only sing if she has practiced the music, perfected it to a certain standard and has warmed up her vocal chords. The joy of listening to that youngster share her natural gift so freely has been lost. What a shame.
What saddened me the most was the recognition of the joy we all lose along the way. This young lady’s story is OUR story. Each one of us has a unique gift we wanted to share with the world when we were young. But somewhere along the way it became conditional or it was discarded because someone didn’t value it. How sad.
But what if we went back? What if we stopped listening to those conditional statements and embraced our gifts with the innocence of a five-year-old? What if we stopped worrying about perfection and shared our gifts freely, with joy and confidence. What if we gave each other thunderous applause for doing so?
I think we would create a better world. Don’t you? J
This week, I was back at my friend’s house and the group was hoping to hear this same ‘not so little’ girl sing for us. We’ve known from the start she is highly gifted and we were hoping to hear her piece that received a first-star at the state level competition. But despite our gentle coaxing, the young woman shook her head and claimed she wasn’t prepared. WHAT?? She has had five years of voice training, sung the lead in the school musicals, competed against kids older than her and won! How was she NOT prepared to sing for us? What happened to the joyful, confident five-year-old?
Life happened. Somewhere along the way the pure, radiant joy she experienced sharing her natural gift, became conditional. It began when she heard some of her pitches were flat and needed perfecting and worsened when she started to compare herself to others. And now the girl with the ‘voice of an angel’ will only sing if she has practiced the music, perfected it to a certain standard and has warmed up her vocal chords. The joy of listening to that youngster share her natural gift so freely has been lost. What a shame.
What saddened me the most was the recognition of the joy we all lose along the way. This young lady’s story is OUR story. Each one of us has a unique gift we wanted to share with the world when we were young. But somewhere along the way it became conditional or it was discarded because someone didn’t value it. How sad.
But what if we went back? What if we stopped listening to those conditional statements and embraced our gifts with the innocence of a five-year-old? What if we stopped worrying about perfection and shared our gifts freely, with joy and confidence. What if we gave each other thunderous applause for doing so?
I think we would create a better world. Don’t you? J
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