What has Marilyn Monroe to do with my guitar playing?

She starred in a movie called 'The 7 Year Itch'! 
Whaaaat? - Patience!  All will be revealed in due course -

 When I started learning guitar I had a simple goal - to play some tunes on the guitar.  Although I started with a steel string, within a few months I switched to nylon, partly because I was taking group lessons with a classical teacher and partly because I found myself attracted to the beautiful sound of the classical guitar.   My goals, however, were still pretty much the same - play some tunes (and enjoy getting there).   But as time went on a funny thing happened - the more I learned, the more problems I started to hear. [Here I have to note that I'm surprised professionals don't wince the whole time they are listening students play -- on second thoughts, perhaps they do!]   So pretty early on my goals morphed into not only learning more difficult 'tunes' but also refining my playing so that it was less wince-worthy.    And I wondered to myself - as an older learner - how far could I get before my body let me down?   Yep - Type A personality here.   I finally settled on aiming to reach a playing standard of grade 8.  It seemed a sufficiently distant, though arbitrary, goal at the time.  Of course I didn't actually tell anyone (it was after all, rather a lofty goal given my age and lack of natural aptitude).

So I've held onto this "goal" over the last few years, but it might be time to reassess. Why?  A number of reasons:  I've been learning CG for 5 years, and if past history is anything to go by I will need to give my playing a new direction within the next couple of years.  I'm still just as addicted to learning CG (OK maybe now I sometimes give myself the occasional day off) but 7 years tends to be the length of my attention span for hobbies -gardening, flying small planes, speed skating...   (See, I did eventually get around to telling you what the title had to do with the subject, if only distantly 😂) Also I'm going to be working on grade 7 material this winter, which means my glorified and distant goal might actually be attainable.  I love to play the guitar.  It still provides me with entertainment, stress relief, new friends, and a sense of satisfaction/achievement so I really don't want it to succumb, either to the '7 year itch', or to a sense of being 'done' if and when I get to grade 8.

Is it enough just to 'stay on the path' and ditch goals altogether?  Perhaps, but realistically I'm not good at standing still: I need something to aim for.  For now, grade 8 fits the bill,  however it may in fact be at or beyond the limit of my physical ability.  So I'm thinking about new directions and possibilities to take my hobby.  At least one goal is certain: not to succumb to the 7 year itch!