Practicing Regularly/Obsessively

I was in my sixties when I started taking flute lessons, after I realized I wasn't going to be able to master the instrument without instruction. When I was a high school student, playing the clarinet, I didn't practice every day by a long shot. I got to be pretty good anyway, and I was (stupidly) satisfied with my playing. But I realized I'd never come close to playing the flute decently unless I practiced a lot. I didn't have many pressing demands on my time, so it was easy to spend an hour or so every day to work toward getting a decent sound on the flute, and I enjoyed making progress, despite the frustration of not progressing fast enough.

Aspiring young musicians practice for hours upon hours, and professionals keep it up, but I'm neither young nor professional, and it's not clear to me what I'm actually aspiring to. Still, I practice almost every day. In part I'm afraid that if I don't practice, I'll lose whatever ability I've acquired and fall backward in my quest for a convincing, beautiful sound. Certainly I won't improve if I don't keep practicing, and improvement is important, because the better one is at it, the more one enjoys music. Pieces that were beyond one's ability are now merely challenging.

The main point of practicing, of course, it to keep learning: about your instrument, about the music you play, and about yourself.