An old dog and new tricks

My partner in Music2Work2 was showing me another project he is working on and telling me how it will also bring about changes to our web site. It is amazing; I can't wait for it to be applied to Music2Work2.

I hope by the time the website has it's new look, I have my new abilities to post blogs that will encourage other people to visit the site. There is so much of the technical stuff I don't know. It has only been a few years since I learned how to actually do things other than use the computer as a word processor. Thanks to my dear friend and now partner in this venture, I learned to add pages to web sites, learned some html language - - things 5 or 6 years ago I never imagined I would be able to do.

I am very fortunate that he is a patient teacher. At 58 years old, to now be learning to upload clips on music sites, to burn CDs, to make the cover and label for the CDs, is not the typical learning activities of the average person my age. Most younger people have been using computers for years and know the "language" and are up on the latest technology. So much of all this is still so foreign to me! The people my age who know all this, more than likely learned it long ago; they didn't wait until this stage of their lives to have to try to learn and catch up on it.

I do consider it quite an accomplishment to have learned as much about the computer, Internet usage, digital music technology and online business as I have. The adage "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" could be pretty applicable in my case in a lot of ways. My memory is not very good anymore, so it takes me longer to learn things. And that dear old companion, "fear," makes it so much harder. But, I know that when I really want to do something, there is a stubbornness about me that makes me keep trying - determined that this old dog will learn something new.

I developed a stubbornness as I was growing up when people told me I couldn't do something - that because of my physical condition and limitations, I wasn't able to do things. When told that, I was more determined than ever to prove them wrong.

Although stubbornness has been an advantage for me in a lot of ways, it has been a hindrance in so many others. For example, I walked on crutches far too many years and destroyed my shoulder joints because I was too stubborn to give in or give up and use a wheelchair. Now I am paying the price with more severe pain.

But without being tenacious and stubborn, I would never have gone to college or graduate school; I would never have traveled to places around the country by myself; I would never have gotten involved in the organization in which I met my partner in Music2Work2; and I would not be learning more and more about computers, online business and digital music technology. In those ways, it has served me well. After all, wouldn't you expect stubbornness from a Taurus!