The other morning, I was on the subway and I really wanted to hear Lupe Fiasco's "Superstar" song to start my day off on the right foot. Most iPod users would just be able to find the song in seconds on their iPod, but I happen to own an iPod Shuffle, the only iPod without a LCD display. I never found the song, however, in my moment of frustration from not being able to control my play list, I began to realize how much my iPod Shuffle was like life.
With an iPod Shuffle, you never know what song is next. You may find the song you're looking for and you may not. Oftentimes, while you're looking for one song, you end up bobbing your head or even two-stepping to other ones along the way. What's even crazier is that the song you end up really feeling and listening to over and over again isn't the one you originally set out to hear.
Like all of the other iPods, we want to be in control of our lives. We want to determine our own play list and are willing to pay extra costs to be DJ and have that security and certainty. Our desire to control costs us by cutting off possibilities that we never imagined. In the same way that songs somehow find us when we let go and just shuffle at random, opportunities somehow pop up when we release our lives to the Divine Judge (DJ). There is no DJ more in tune with our hearts and the Universe than the Divine Judge.
Life is random like a play list, but after a while, it starts to know what we like and play more of that type of music. Give thanks for the original song I was looking for because the pursuit of it led me to all of the other great ones.
The iPod Shuffling Through Life Play List
- Just For Today by India Arie
- Who Cares by Gnarls Barkley
- In The End by Linkin Park
- + YOUR SONGS HERE +
Dude, you rock. That's an awesome observation. Furthermore, when we do have the controls, often times we end up listening to the same old thing and never leaving our comfort zones. The shuffling along of life occurs in direct proportion to the degree we can have open minds and open hearts.