This is a topic that is close to my heart - being okay as an amateur. This was one of the passages that motivated me and my wife towards homeschooling our son years ago,
The word amateur has come by the thousand oddities of language to convey an idea of tepidity; whereas the word itself has the meaning of passion. Nor is this peculiarity confined to the mere form of the word; the actual characteristic of these nameless dilettanti is a genuine fire and reality. A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame or money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well. Such a man must love the toils of the work more than any other man can love the rewards of it.
G.K. Chesterton
Essentially, we weren't teachers by profession, but we thought that wasn't or shouldn't be a barrier towards taking on the responsibility of schooling our child full-time outside of the traditional public school system. Almost a decade later, we seem to have find our way to doing that well enough, despite a lot of mistakes and detours. I can look back now and imagine the me in my twenties would be very disagreeable to this, but then again, that's one of the benefits of growing older - those narrow, simplistic binary views of our youth gets replaced by more accepting, broader and deeper perspectives towards life.
To me, being an amateur means being removed from the burdens placed upon one's shoulders by capitalism. Where I am from, this permanence can be seen in almost every random social conversation. Try baking as a hobby, and next you will be asked when are you planning to sell those brownies. I literally was asked if I planned to play in an ensemble when I bought my double bass. I replied and said I have no idea, and that's kind of endearing when you think about it in today's context.
In other words, I have no plans to monetize this, thank you very much. As a professional software developer, I already have a sufficient outlet to practice ambition, striving (to become better year by year), accept the burden of expectations (from my coworkers and boss), experience stress and bring home the bread and the butter. So when I approach everything outside of programming, I am - nay, I strive to be a genuine amateur, and relish the divorce it brings from professionalism.
I really enjoyed reading Whole Notes by Ed Ayres, where music is portrayed as something essential to our lives, that by bringing the learning of music into our lives, it can become a teacher to help me know me better.
After a long day's work, I reach home, take a shower, maybe chat for a bit with my wife and son, then I proceed to take out the instrument, my metronome, practice material, and sit down for an hour of practice. I begin with tuning the instrument, then a series of warmup exercises or scales, then work on pieces given to me by my teachers, or something that I want to try, and wrap up with additional sightreading exercises.
That is my reward, to be able to do this, every day. This is my mindfulness practice, my meditation.
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Inspired after reading Feel free to stop striving: learn to relish being an amateur