My Guidance Counselor Practically Said, “Learn To Play Guitar” – How I Discovered My Dream

“Learn to play guitar?” It was more of question coming from my guidance counselor’s lips, but for me it was a statement – a fact. I knew for certain that someday I was destined to learn how to play a guitar and play it great. The entire day rings clearly in my mind and I’ll never forget it.

How I Came To Realize My Destiny

It was my junior year of high school. The second semester had just started and I was fairly excited. My time for taking the coveted career assessment test happened to fall upon the hour I was supposed to take a physics test. It was a no brainer. I knew my destiny was not to be a physicist so I owed it to my future to investigate my options. I approached the study hall room, checked in with my counselor, and took my seat.

I will admit that I had a few snickers when it came to a lot of the questions on that career assessment test. They all had to do with solid structure and there was nothing that suggested any bit of creativity (or the kind I had). My fingers tapped on the desk to the rhythmic tune of Steve Vai in the movie Crossroads. Then it happened, it was almost like my fingers had willed it with their call to the fake guitar strings on the study hall desk. I found the question, “Do you like music?” I used my No. 2 pencil and scribbled in the YES oval precisely and pressed down so hard I broke the tip.

After sharpening my pencil I went back to my career test. I was a bit more invigorated and completed it quickly. It does take a few weeks to get the results of the test and find them out. My career counselor called me down to go over “my options”. That’s when I heard my top three choices: 1) Music teacher; 2) Luthier; 3) Construction worker. Music teacher made me laugh, construction worker was out of the question, but I didn’t even know what a Luthier was. I asked and my counselor told me that she hadn’t known either. It certainly had never shown up on a career assessment before. A Luthier was a person who designed, constructed, and repaired guitars. I couldn’t help but wonder if Steve Vai had sent me some sort of message from the Crossroads.

Denying my destiny

Every bit of me wanted to start those guitar lessons right away. I dreamed of being the go to guy of the best known guitarists in the world. The dream went on the back burner quickly when I found out that I couldn’t afford guitar lessons and my parents certainly were not going to use my college fund to pay for them. I ended up going to school for drafting. I did really great at it and drafted my way into a great life as an adult. Now I am a professional drafter, father of three, and a husband to a great wife. I’m not sure if you guessed it yet, but there is no master guitar player in me at this point. I can’t even strum a tune on my kid’s ukulele from our trip to Hawaii.

Thank you destiny for not giving up on me

I love everything about my life, but have always wanted to learn to play guitar. Maybe it’s my love of music or maybe it’s a desire to hold on to a rock and roll dream. It really doesn’t matter. Guess why? Because I found out that I do have the time to learn guitar and I am great at it. What makes it even better is that I didn’t have to enroll in completely expensive private lessons to do it. I am taking lessons from home and have access to everything I need from that spot. After my kids go to bed for the night I kick back and start strumming my Steve Vai replica from the movie Crossroads. My kids and wife have taken an interest, but they get more joy out of watching me have such a great time learning guitar. They all know I’ve always wanted to do it.

The proof is in

I am so lucky to have found the ideal website to help get me started on my goal of learning to play the guitar. These are the things I considered when making the choice: 1) Easy to use; 2) Affordable; 3) Really teaches me.

There is no way to use words to say how happy I am that I finally learned to play a guitar. I always wanted to do it and finally realized that I should – there were no reasons or excuses left to hold me back. Today, my dreams of days past have changed my old guidance counselor’s statement from a question mark to a huge exclamation, “Learn to play guitar!”