August 15th, 2016
One of the best things you can do to yourself is learn an instrument, and from my (admittedly biased) perspective the best of these is the piano. If you were ever thinking of it, there's no time like now to find a teacher and start learning.
A few things to keep in mind. First, distinguish between playing for fun, as a small hobby, and taking the art seriously. The small-hobby approach is definitely possible and if that is what you want, then go for it. But you need to realize that this treatment will not get you far beyond chord-based pop songs and at most the easier repertoire, let's say maybe even up to Grade 8 RCM in the Canadian system.
Now, there are a few who would like to take piano seriously, perhaps not to a professional level but to an advanced, proficient level. This is the harder but infinitely more rewarding approach. It requires a dedication and commitment that maybe once you thought impossible , and some are just not capable of. In my younger years I used to think playing 2 hours a day was something huge and unreachable, just crazy. Then as Grade 9 came up, 2 hours became my preferred goal of daily practice and was not really hard at all. When doing my Grade 10 this spring, two hours was the lower, unsatisfactory limit of a practice session during which I aimed for around 3 hours on average. On days when I had no classes in my senior high schoolyear I pulled off five-hour practice days with only slight fatigue. Long story short, now 8 hours a day is what five years ago I thought of for 2 hours - something even impossible. Yet professional concert pianists do