decision

In thinking about the decisions currently facing me, I got to thinking about possibly the biggest decision I ever made. When I was in UNCG, during my sophmore year, I was a part of the fledgling Habitat for Humanity club. I really enjoyed it, and I became head of fundraising, at which I was pretty much a disaster. But at the end of the year, the president had to step down, as the two most important years of her music studies were approaching, and she needed to focus on that. Of course, I was approaching the same years as she, but still she chose to ask me to become president. During the previous year, I had worked to organize an extremely unsuccessful benefit concert (though very fun! haha - so few people came that we ended up dancing on stage with the band), and it had taken away a lot of the time I "should" have devoted to my composition studies. I was losing favor with my cranky composition teacher, and my grades were starting to slip. He constantly told me that I needed to "lock myself into a room, and write", or "be a hermit for the weekend". Let me tell you, I was sooooo excited to run home and compose after that motivation. All my professors, really, seemed to come up with less-than-creative solutions to my study problems. (One suggested that during my piano jury, I pretend that I am being paid for every correct note. Believe me, thinking about every note, and every missed note, in a piece with some 5000 notes or so, is not really effective) Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming my teachers for my lack of achievement, but I was taking the wrong approach, and being given some ideas of other wrong approaches to try. Anyway, my composition teacher explained that the next year would be crucial to my success. He told me that I would have to write a TON of material, implying (or outright saying) that I needed to make up for lost time. There was a chance for success, if I put my nose to the grindstone.
On the other hand, my friend Jenn was trying to convince me to become president of Habitat for Humanity. She wrote me a long, somewhat manipulative letter (I did actually recognize that manipulation at the time) about how great I was and how much she wanted me to be president. HFH at UNCG was her baby, and she wanted to see it succeed. I didn't want to let her down, or the other kids in the group. I didn't want to see it disappear from campus. I laid down on a campus bench after my last composition class of the year, after my professor's ultimatum. What should I do? Where did my priorities lie? I struggled for a long time, and finally, I chose to become president of the club.

Years later, sometimes I check the Habitat for Humanity at UNCG website. They have up and down years, depending on leadership, but the organization seems to have remained intact. Would someone else have stepped up if I hadn't? Would Jenn have taken over, herself? I attended her senior recital. She was a somewhat talented singer, with a very pleasant voice, though not an opera star. She graduated on time, with her BA in music education.

During my junior year, and tenure as HFH president, my grades slipped further. I dropped almost as many classes as I registered for. My relationships with both my composition teacher and my high school boyfriend disintegrated. I lost my scholarship, and was asked to leave the composition department. The habitat for humanity group stayed intact, though fundraisers continued to lose more money than they made. The only class I managed to succeed in was conducting, maybe because I didn't want to be humiliated in front of my friends when I didn't know the score! I hit rock bottom when I forgot to attend a good friend's recital. I may have been confused as to who I was, but I knew it wasn't someone who got so lost in her own problems that she couldn't support a friend. From there, or somewhere around there, my slow upward climb began.

Who would I have been if I hadn't taken on that responsibility? I don't blame all my problems on it - I may still have had to learn things the hard way, even without that extra strain. But if I had to go back, I have to admit, I probably wouldn't do it. The whole decision hinged on the idea that I was the only person in the world who was in the position to make that particular difference. And maybe I was. When we look at our lives, where are the places where we are the only person in the world who can make that particular change? Is that how we decide who we are?