Trying something isn't a lifelong commitment

Back in August I spontaneously (and possibly under the influence) decided to buy some used electronic drums. I had been recreationally thinking about it for years. The opportunity presented itself on the Facebook from someone in the neighborhood, so an hour later, I had electronic drums in my house.

At first, I spent about 15 minutes a day behind them, mostly every day. Over the time since, the interval decreased, but my ability to make noise with them increased. I was entirely learning from YouTube videos. I reached a point where I could pretty quickly act on variations, and started to figure out how to put the occasional fill in there. In my ears at least, it sounded a lot like drumming, if not particularly complex in nature. I didn't really play with anything, so I probably would not have been useful to a band.

Curiosity satisfied, I finally packed them back up into their boxes. The truth is, I understand them well enough to know that if I'm ever going to advance, I will have to put in a lot of time. I don't feel like I have that time, or that the reward and satisfaction is high enough to commit.

That's OK.

Call it another midlife epiphany, but I think I understand now that just because you try something new doesn't mean that you have to commit to it forever. That seems obvious when you say it out loud, but I never really realized it. I suspect that part of my thinking is that I simply have too many things that I start and don't finish. While true, if I take inventory of the things that I have finished in the last year, I think I am pretty entitled to not finish stuff.

So try things, you don't have to keep doing them.