Explore Yourself

This may sound like a negative, but hang on – it gets good.

The Premise-

When you’re lying on your deathbed,

one of the really cool things to say is,

“I really explored myself.”

~Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.

When you come to the end, the idea is to have used up everything within you.  If we have our music still inside of us, we have wasted some of life.

And this is not about music – it’s about living life full and out loud.  In the movie Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams does an abridged version of the great Thoreau quote:

“I went to the woods because I

wanted to live deliberately,

I wanted to live deep and

suck out all the marrow of life …

“ … to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”

Gotta love that. 

I have discovered that I am a multi-layered, multi-faceted individual who can do a lot of different things.  I’ve discovered my passion along the way and now I am focused on what I want and am headed for it like a straight arrow. 

Are you in the process of sucking the marrow out of life?

Are you living life without regrets?

Let me tell you a story:

There once was a master violinist who had to sell his finely crafted violin.  After selling it he vowed one day to buy it back.

Time passed.

He saved his money and was finally able to visit the pawn shop.  Unfortunately, it has been sold to a collector who wanted to place it in a shadow box and hung on his wall.

The violinist visited the collector and pleaded with him to sell him back his violin.  The collector refused.  In desperation, the virtuoso asked if he could at least play his violin one last time before it became a collector’s piece, never to be heard from again.

The collector agreed. 

The virtuoso tuned the strings and began playing.  As the music filled the room, the collector’s heart was softened and he agreed to give the violin back to the master violinist.  He could not deprive the world of the lovely music from this fine musical instrument.  He could not let the violin sit in silence. 

Please don’t sit in silence. 

Get your music out – whatever kind of music you make. 

Do you write books?  Write, my friend.  Write.

Do you build buildings?  Build the finest you can build.

Do you work on computers?  Be the best computer repair-person the world has ever seen.

When you come to your end, I want you to be able to say with joy and confidence …

“I really explored myself.”

P Michael Biggs

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