The Opposite of a Practice

Getting back to our series on Having a Practice …

… it may be useful to define several ways of working that are NOT a practice.

When we embark on a single, one-shot enterprise, hoping that the endeavor will succeed so brilliantly that we can cash in and say we’ve “made it” … that’s NOT a practice.When we finish our album or launch our startup and wait breathlessly to see if we’ve got a hit, that’s NOT a practice.When we invest ourselves emotionally in the outcome of any project, from a Spartan race to a one-act play to the launch of our new high-protein, low-fat, non-GMO energy beverage, that is NOT a practice.

In other words, when our motivation is grounded in our ego, we do not have a practice. 

Or to flip that statement on its head, the aim of a practice is effacement of the ego.

When Miss Craske told my friend David and his fellow Metropolitan Opera ballet students (see Writing Wednesdays, January 24 of this year) “Leave your problems outside,” she was saying:

This class is a practice. When you step inside this studio to dance, leave behind your fear, your competitiveness with others, your anger, your worry, your grudges, your complaints, your dissatisfaction with your lot, your greed for glory, your avarice for attention.

You are here to dance as well as you can. Leave your ego and your problems outside. 

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