Ani DiFranco on Patience and Happiness

I am a huge Ani DiFranco fan. If you don't know her, she's a folk/punk/rock singer who at the age of 19, founded her own record label and started touring the country. She's released an album a year for nearly two decades now, and can sell out 5,000 seat auditoriums at will. She is an icon in the music world, being one of the most successful truly independent artists of our time.

Ani was interviewed on last week's Sound Opinions, and they asked about the steady, patient grind she has exemplified for twenty years. In response, she said:

Yeah, I think I've grown my patience, as I got older. But I think what I did have in the beginning was just a lust what I do, for making music. It was so exciting to me to play in a bar for five people; especially if I could see their eyes and smell them and you know, making that connection was always very exciting to me. So, I wasn't holding out for the rock star dream or waiting to be happy or fulfilled with my art. I think what passed for patience for me in the beginning was just sincerely being thrilled with whatever kind of performance or low, obscure situation I was in.

There is a koan, "If you meet the Bhudda, kill him." Whatever your conception of enlightenment, whatever your conception of your goal, it is wrong. You must discard ideas of the form "If I could just... then I'd be happy." Do not hold your happiness hostage. Find satisfaction in the present, and in the process of striving toward the future.