首先纠正，“giveup”应为“give up”，意为“放弃”，原文标题可译为《我差点放弃学吉他的那天》，摘要可围绕该主题，简述某天学吉他时因反复练不好和弦、手指疼痛且进度停滞，产生强烈放弃念头，后经回忆初衷或他人鼓励坚持下来的经历，体现学琴的波折与坚持的意义。
The scratch of the pick against the steel string made me wince. For the third week in a row, I’d sat on my bedroom floor, fingers throbbing from the pressure of holding down chords, staring at a sheet of music that might as well have been written in hieroglyphics. “I can’t do this,” I muttered, shoving the guitar case under my bed. “I give up.”
It wasn’t just the sore fingertips or the off-key strumming that broke me. It was the quiet comparison to my friend Lila, who’d picked up the guitar six months prior and now played folk songs at local coffee shops like she’d been born with a pick in her hand. I’d wanted this for years—had saved up for that vintage acoustic, had watched endless tutorials, had even forced my little brother to sit through my wobbly attempts at “Wonderwall.” But that night, all I saw was failure.
I didn’t touch the case for two weeks. It sat under my bed, gathering dust, a reminder of a dream I’d tossed aside. Then, one rainy Saturday, I found an old voice note in my phone: a recording of me, 16 years old, strumming a messy version of the first song I’d ever loved, “Hallelujah,” for my grandma before she got sick. Her voice, soft and wobbly, had cut in halfway through: “That’s beautiful, baby. Don’t ever stop.”
My throat tightened. I’d given up not just on the guitar, but on the part of me that played for her—for the joy of making sound, not for the applause. I dragged the case out, wiped the dust off, and ran my fingers over the worn fretboard. The first chord still hurt, still sounded off, but this time I didn’t shove it away. I kept going.
Some days, I still want to give up. When a new chord stretches my fingers to the point of tears, when I mess up a solo mid-practice, when I think about how far I have to go. But now I remember: giving up isn’t a one-time choice. It’s the little decision to walk away every time it gets hard. And the best choice I ever made was choosing not to.
Last month, I played that same messy version of “Hallelujah” at a small open mic. I messed up a verse, laughed it off, and kept going. When I finished, a woman came up to me, her eyes shiny, and said, “That made me miss my mom too.”
I didn’t need to be perfect. I just needed to not give up.
