I’m 52 years old. By some standards, that’s approaching old fart status… 
I’ve been playing the guitar for 40 years, been singing for about 15 of ‘em. I absolutely love music, playing it, writing it, composing it, producing it. Music is in my blood. And I’ve recently made a real stretch with music…
I’ve started taking piano lessons. I can play the guitar with my eyes closed. But on the piano, I’m as newbie as newbie gets. I’ve only had TWO lessons thus far!
And you want to know what’s weird? I can feel that tendency within to want to quit.
Years ago, I taught guitar lessons. And it was almost unanimous that the students all wanted to quit somewhere close to the beginning. They just couldn’t get their fretting fingers to sit right on the strings… they couldn’t get that “sound” they were looking for, or that they had dreamed of before they picked up the instrument. They could imagine it, and hear it in their mind, but they couldn’t make it happen upon sitting down with the guitar and giving it a go.
So the weird part is… In my mind, I can hear myself playing beautiful pieces, and creating new works that are the best ever! But my fingers? Right now… well… they no workee… (OK, Ok, they workee, sort of, just not as well as I’d like them to, so am I being impatient? Probably…)
And then I had that big ah ha moment! When I look at this experience, this unfolding, on the bright side, I realize that each day, when I practice, it feels as though I am chipping away at something, one very tiny piece at a time. It may not look like much or seem like much from one day to the next, but… over time…
It’s like when a seasoned sculptor starts out with a big, ugly, formless block – he/she already “sees” the finished product, but must chip away, one very tiny piece at a time, to reveal to others what they already know.
So I commit to mentoring myself now and saying, “patience my young Padawan, time to get ready for lesson number 3!”
Todd
PS – Is this related in any way to giving? You betcha! 100%! You must give time to anything worth doing, especially your dream!!!