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I have a huge list of goals that I want to achieve during my life time. Some goals are small like learning to keep a goldfish alive for longer than a month. Other goals are more significant like traveling to all fifty states or learning a second language. As I continue to learn new things and accomplish goals on my list it seems that I also add new goals to my list so that it never gets much smaller or much bigger. I think I'll always have more goals than I can accomplish. I recently accomplished a goal that has been on my list since its beginning. I started taking guitar lessons.

Sound like no big deal? If it doesn't, then you obviously do not know me well. You have no idea that I have wanted to learn how to play guitar since I was eight and you have no clue that I have been saving my spare change for years to buy a guitar and begin taking lessons. You see, for me, starting guitar lessons was the sign of so many other things that had happened in my life.

Starting guitar lessons was a sign that I had been faithful to save spare change for over six years and it was a sign that I finally got up the courage to do something I am not good at. I have this tendency to only spend time on things I can do well at, so most of the goals on my list that involve learning new skills get left undone. So it was a real feat for me to begin guitar lessons. My first lesson symbolized my desire to stop living afraid of things that cannot hurt me. Guitar lessons are the first step in a direction I have been wanting to head for quite some time.

Starting guitar lessons has also helped me to cross off another goal from my list: getting over my fear of meeting and spending time with new people. The man who is giving me guitar lessons could probably go down in history as one of the least intimidating people on the earth, yet it is still significant for me to have taken this step. I will never forget the feeling of anxiety I felt as I knocked on his front door on the afternoon of my first lesson. I felt like my heart was going to pound out of my chest. Within five minutes I had entered his house, learned a little about him, began my first of many guitar lessons, and could cross off two goals on my list at the same time. Not bad for just five minutes.