“I’m sure that I could be a movie star, if I could get out of this place…”

Billy Joel for so long to me was the cheesy guy  who pranced around in the Uptown Girl video and I have wrongly had a misconception of him and his music for so long that I had almost deprived myself of it assuming it was all early 80’s light pop… oh how I was wrong and this song is what pulled me into finding out more about The Piano Man. Piano man in particular is a great example of how music can offer more than just catchy hooks and repetitive rhythms, this perfectly displays an often now underused technique of painting a vivid visual scene with music and lyrics, this song for me actually transports me to the sad lonely hearts bar that he is singing about so much so I can almost go into a coughing fit imagining this smoke filled dive.

I could bang on all day about Billy Joel but alas my point is a little deeper blues licks and imaginative lyrics, sadly I have found the lyrics in the title to be the mantra of may people I have met recently, I am often met with I could do {Blank} if only I {Blank} why is this? More and more as I get older I am no longer met with youthful confidence and in some cases arrogance of “I can do this!” or “I am going to conquer X,Y or Z” instead I am met with a more pessimistic and sometimes self deprecating “Oh I couldn’t do that” or even a sadder “I don’t have {Blank} so I cant do {Blank} which takes the onus off  the person themselves and blames the  hand that they have been dealt, now in some cases I think this is completely legit and life deals you a crappy hand e.g. I’m around 5ft 7” and I will never be able to dunk a basketball no matter what, to quote 2Pac/Bruce Hornsby “that’s just the way it is” that is a completely legitimate time to say “If only i was 6ft8” then I could slam dunk a basketball.

The kind of excuses that I am talking about are ones where you discount yourself on no actual grounds, I speak to people who are friends or colleagues who look at me and say “I would love to travel like you do but I cant…” when I press them with the question of “Why not?” they are often perplexed  firstly that I had the audacity to ask that question and secondly that they don’t really have a better answer that “Just because” often we (myself included) can discount ourselves from being able to do something because we have a little or large fear about something like “travel is expensive what if I don’t pay it back quickly?” or “I don’t know if I’m very good at singing so I just better not sing” or even as silly as “why would I try something new when I might not be any good at it” these are genuine fears that along with the great “legitimate ***not really legitimate ***” excuses that we tell ourselves make us do the same thing of; Wake up, Go to Work, Watch TV, Eat, Sleep and repeat until the clock runs out and nothing else.

My challenge will be, without trying to sound too much like a chavy lower back tattoo, don’t let your excuses dictate what you can be. That is all.