When you experience an involuntary emotional response, whether positive or negative, it is often a clue. You have stumbled onto something that will lead you toward or away from your destiny. It\u2019s important to pay attention.<\/p>\n\n
For example, not many people know I majored in music for my first two years of college. I played guitar, piano, and bass. Music was my life. It was all I ever thought about.
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\nFor my junior year, I transferred from my small junior college to Baylor University. I was excited, because the music school was legendary. But I quickly discovered that I was just one aspiring musician in a sea of extraordinary players.<\/p>\n
The competition scared me. By the end of the first semester I threw in the towel, switched majors, and sold my instruments. I essentially kissed music good-bye.<\/p>\n
I thought I was being \u201cpractical.\u201d But it was mostly about fear.<\/p>\n
I quickly refocused my energy on other things. I discovered new passions, including my love of books and learning. This eventually led to a very satisfying career in the book publishing industry.<\/p>\n
But something was lost.<\/p>\n
Over the years, I occasionally played the guitar or the piano. But it was rare. I just didn\u2019t allow myself to go there. In fact, I haven\u2019t owned a guitar since college, though I have bought a couple for my children.<\/p>\n
Last week, my daughter, Madeline, and her husband Shawn came over for dinner. Madeline brought her guitar and asked if I could help her learn a song by the artist Mree. It was in an unusual tuning, and she couldn\u2019t figure it out.<\/p>\n
We worked on it for about ten minutes and determined the artist was using an \u201copen D tuning.\u201d We didn\u2019t learn the whole song, but we played what we knew for Gail and Shawn. (I still had cheap guitar at the house that one of my other daughters had abandoned years ago.)<\/p>\n
When Madeline started singing, I cried.<\/p>\n
The emotion surprised me. Something was resonating within me at a very deep level. I sensed something in my heart had just woken up after a very long sleep.<\/p>\n