Skipping ahead to awesome?

Yeah, NOPE!

I think most of us musically inclined folks have gone through this (hopefully brief) phase.

I remember having a HUGE insight one time shortly after I had graduated from conservatory: I wanted — nay, expected! — to be awesome, but I didn’t practice consistently.

What I realized is that I wanted something for nothing!

Talk about a sobering realization.

Of course, it doesn’t work that way. If it seems like it does, it’s simply because a person has done the work in (many) previous lifetimes, making it appear that they’re a “natural” now.