Principles

I don't usually think of myself as a man of principles. Rather, I believe that I go about dealing with issues in a contexual and situational way. In so doing I pay attention to the concrete details before me, the moods and emotions of others and myself. I find great pleasure in doing so and often leave a "situation" with a sense of having listened and truly responded to the problem.
So, it's with a bit of surprise in myself that I'm writing down this story about the way I handled the following situation.

Both my eldest sons, Noah and Jacob, are taking piano lessons (so am I, by the way, and from the same teacher). I have noticed that Jacob, my middle son, had lost his practicing energy. He would hardly sit by the piano. While before he spent long hours working on figuring out the quite complicated pieces I was playing he now wouldn't do anything anymore. I didn't say anything about it, figuring Rachel, our teacher, would soon enough notice and talk to him about practicing.

Well, she did. I was in the next room and heard some of it. Rachel wasn't angry or threatening. But she was firm. They agreed on a practicing schedule for Jacob, three times a week, after homework's done. I was relieved and felt, in a way, that Rachel had made it easier for me.

Not so. When Jacob was done with his lesson he came to me and said: I want to stop playing the piano. I was tempted to ask "why". But I didn't. Rather, I said: well, you can't. Mama and I believe that playing the piano is good for you, it's a little bit like going to school, there really isn't a choice about it. Well, he asked, how much longer will I have to do it? I thought about this question for a second. Intuitively, I wanted to say "until you're 12" (he is 8 now). But I pushed myself and said: Until you're 16. At this point, he began to cry, overwhelmed, perhaps, by the sheer infinity that seemed to stretch before him when thinking of himself as a sixteen year old and how long it would take him to get there.

I said: I'm sorry you're upset about this. But I think, Jacob, the issue is not really that you don't want to play the piano. I've seen you play, I've heard you play. I've heard how much fun you have and how much energy there is in your practice and playing. So, I don't really believe that you don't like playing the piano. I think you're upset because you haven't practiced and playing the piano simply cannot be much fun without practicing. If you really want to find out whether or not you like something you have to do it first. There is no way around it. And you have to do it with attention and focus.

Jacob stopped crying. I'm not sure what he felt or was thinking about. I refrained from asking, fearing I would dilute what had just been achieved: there are principles of living and learning, some of which we set for ourselves, but some are set for us by others and we have to allow ourselves to treat them as tasks for us.

Jacob has begun to practice more. It's not a sea-change. But truly, all real change is slow. But he is doing it and, often, I'm somewhere near, so that he can ask, if he has questions about it. Rachel has noticed too and is giving him strong and encouraging feedback. I' m sure there are reasons why he is feeling this impasse right now. The birth of his brother, a bit less than a year ago, might be part of it. Feeling the strong urge to forge his own path through life, wanting to be different from both his older and younger brothers. A healthy need, perhaps, also to emancipate himself from the strong impact of his father, me. The point of this is that all these things are real and important. I'm hoping that what he's learning from it is that often feelings are contradictory and that processing them means to figure out solutions as they emerge from those contradictions.