The musical group Coldplay performs a song called “The Scientist”. A couple of the lines out of the chorus struck me a couple of weeks ago as I sat at my desk working. But the moment passed and I failed to grab on to the meaning. This past Saturday night, Coldplay performed the second of two sold-out shows at the American Airlines Center and, fortunately for me, they played this song and a light went off in my head.

“Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard. Oh, take me back to the start.”

The words rung through the arena and amidst all the noise and commotion – they put on quite a show – I “checked out” for a few moments in thought. There are plenty of interpretations of this song online. It seems everyone has a personal story that identifies with the song…probably a good indication as to why the song is very popular among Coldplay’s fan base. The song in its entirety isn’t nearly as important to me as that theme. A modern day band certainly can’t be credited with the quote “nobody said it was easy”. That line has been around since before I was a child. Many self-help books and inspirational blogs, this one included, harp on the themes of “you’re not alone” and “roads not taken”. I’ve mentioned poets like Robert Frost and Walt Whitman in past blogs who talk about the struggles of everyday living. Authors galore have written around the “life is difficult” theme.

To explain why the light bulb went off Saturday night, I want to try to give you the imagery of the night. Walking into the arena, the ticket attendants handed every person a wristband and asked that the audience please wear it. Signs hung in the halls and the arena depicting a 4-step process of how to actually slide the wrist band on your arm and tighten it, etc, and reminded the audience this would be a part of the show.

Less than 5 minutes after my rear-end hit the seat, the arena went black and I didn’t sit down again. The audience began to roar, the bass drum began its heavy beat – still with the arena dark. And all at once, you could tell everybody had their hands raised pumping fists to the beat of the music because the wristbands lit up more than 20,000 arms in every neon color you could imagine. The roar doubled when people realized they were already a part of the show, and the band had barely played a note.

The opening song was electrifying, and I can’t tell you which song it was. The second song brought on another special effect…confetti cannons that were placed around the stage. These cannons were like none I’d seen before and had the propulsion of what seemed like a jet engine – confetti was blown all the way to the rafters at the AAC. The roar, which couldn’t get any louder, seemed to turn from excitement to amazement as we all watched like Texas children do when we get that once every five or six years’ snow storm. Lights bounced off the confetti and it was truly like a dream. It seemed to fall for several songs as the air vents around the AAC seemed to levitate the confetti in mid-air. A few songs in, the effect was gone but confetti filled the floor at the AAC…and that’s when I saw it…a lone piece of confetti falling like a feather somewhere close to the center of the stage. I stared at that little piece of paper as it slowly drifted down and then glanced around trying to see if maybe more had been blown into the air that I didn’t see. Nope. This straggler was minutes behind the rest of the confetti – I could only imagine it had somehow lodged itself gently in the rafter and some air vent happened to give it the push it needed to make its way to the floor. Fortunately, my focus was broken by the thought…grab a picture!

It’s a silly story really, but, for some reason, it took me back to the words… “nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard. Oh take me back to the start.”

Many of you have probably seen this quote by the business writer Harvey Mackay:

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. Love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don’t. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy. They just promised it would be worth it.

As the words to that song kept echoing in my head the past couple of days, so did Mr. Mackay’s last line. I have read and written often on not living with regrets, about not getting hung up on the little things, and certainly about grabbing on to every opportunity. I love the way Mackay puts it… “grab it with both hands!”

I do believe everything happens for a reason – it’s the concept of providence, really. Just as a piece of trash falling from the rafters on Saturday night thrust me forward in thought, so goes the daily lives of those who choose to pay close attention. Detail was not always my thing…in fact, in many ways, it’s still not. But on a topic of interest to me…and really, this applies to any of us…I can tell you all about that metaphorical last piece of confetti when I really want to.

In recent years, I purposed to understand more about why things happen. With that, I became more keenly aware of the lives and events that crossed my path and found it sweeter to pay attention than to just let life happen to me. Instead of focusing on the “why me”, I taught myself to go past those cynical snags and focus more on what good could come out of things. That type of existence has definitely been much sweeter than the alternative.

Many have heard Gandhi’s quote “you must be the change you want to see in the world.” This applies without qualification. If a person wants to see negativity and destruction, they will certainly be all about negativity and destruction. But for the person who wants goodness, kindness, sweetness, etc, they will certainly strive, more often than not, to be that kind of change.

And again, it comes down to our privilege of choice. Sure, nobody said that life would be this hard…nor did anybody say it was easy. If you want it to be “worth it”, though, accept your privilege and choose wisely. As Mackay said, “if it changes your life, let it.”

Blessings to all of you

Tim