A recital hall seats a few hundred. Your piano teacher’s living room taught you more than any of them.

Audiences receive a performance; the small room produced it. Hundreds of people hearing you for four minutes had no hand in whether you can play, while an hour a week in a cramped room with one person correcting your wrist is where the ability actually came from. We celebrate the first because it is visible and countable. The second is where the work lived.

Notice which rooms are doing the real work in your life, and protect them. The practice room, the shift with the good trainer, the one teacher who tells you the truth. If somebody like that taught you, say so before they retire.