We watched the Leonard Bernstein film starring Bradley Cooper last night and I was struck by a line his wife Felicia Montealegre says when Bernstein was struggling. She says, “if nothing sings in you, then you can’t make music.”
The question of what sings in us is helpful as it relates to our work and what we want to accomplish. Because I understand the idea of “what sings in you” as our ability to enjoy life and to find inspiration from the world that surrounds us.
In other words, if we are a designer and can’t find joy in other people’s designs, our work won’t be inspired. The same for cooks, doctors, gardeners, volunteers, marketers, people in sales, and poets. If that work doesn’t “sing” in us, it will be difficult to do work that will inspire yourself or others.
For Bernstein, he went and rediscovered the music inside of himself. But it isn’t always necessarily so. Sometimes, we might need to go and listen for a different kind of melody and from there create new music.
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