Which Came First, Happiness Or Success?

First things first. If we’re going to talk about happiness, how about this??

There’s a small, organic coop in the basement of the student union building at University of Maryland. They have tons of fun organic, vegan, and gluten-free drinks and snacks and meals. I got this muffin that’s not only gluten free and vegan, but sweetened with blue agave nectar. I’m gradually cutting back on gluten…it’s hard. More on that later:)

Ok, now we can get down to business.

Here ate NOI, we have weekly or bi-weekly lectures called NOIplus. They range from improv, to yoga for musicians, to breathing classes for wind players.

Today’s lectures was titled “Music Entrepreneurship” and was led by a violinist from Philadelphia Orchestra (one of the greatest in the U.S.) and the former CEO of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

We were given this situation:
You play an instrument in an orchestra, somewhere in the U.S. You have a comfortable happy life…and then the orchestra goes bankrupt (it occasionally happens). Figure out how to create a salary for yourself as a musician without moving to a new city.

We divided into small groups of 5 people, then came back together to discuss. So many cool ideas were shared! There are a lots of ways to make a decent living as a musician. Apart from playing in a pro orchestra (dream job!!!), there’s private and public teaching, endless amounts of gigs, forming a chamber group, instrumental repair/tuning, administration for festivals/camps/music organizations…lots of other ideas for anyone who is willing to think outside of the box! None of these are full time jobs. As a musician, if I want to be successful, I have to expect to constantly have several small jobs going on at the same time. Good thing I like to juggle…

Success was a term that was tossed around A LOT today. What the heck does it even mean?? To most of the world, success is something that creates happiness.

Ironically, I think that most people know, deep inside, that being successful isn’t a very good way to establish true happiness. Instead, it needs to be flip-flopped: happiness is something that creates success.

The violinist from Philadelphia said something that I absolutely loved:
“Success means that the world knows you’re doing well, but happiness means that you know you’re doing well. So if you’re successful, you might not be happy. But if you’re happy, you’ll almost always be successful.“

How cool is that?

Being a musician is a scary, scary thing. Things somehow worked out for this next year by winning a spot in the Civic, but after that – who knows? It’s not a safe life for someone who is trying to start a family, but for a single girl in her 20’s, it’s not too shabby:)

I’m off to have a happy evening playing my heart out at Chamber Marathon Concert #2!