One of the responsibilities that parents often have with children is the supervision of musical lessons. Getting the kids to practice is never easy. The first problem is just getting them to sit down to do it. Then, the second problem begins. Did you ever notice how easy it is to re-play the familiar? When you listen to those practices, ever notice how often you hear the same pieces over and over again? The prospect of struggling through a new piece seems like torture, so the temptation is not to bother -- to be satisfied with the old, familiar songs, and not to struggle with the difficult, seemingly impossible new ones. The temptation is to take the easy way out. But is this true only of children and musical lessons? I think not.

All of us face days filled with the temptation to take the…