This picture always makes me smile, depicting some of my favorites from my teenage years: my favorite shirt, a favorite friend, and my favorite activity–messing around with music. You could often find me here, writing music at our beloved piano, Cable Nelson.
Cable Nelson represents a dream to me. Or more accurately, it can be a reminder to all of us that when dreams change they can actually be bridges to dreams that better represent how we’re meant to bring our light into the world.
The Purpose of a Piano
Cable Nelson was an old player piano from the early 1900’s. It took six men to move from a church to our house and became a staple. In fact, last I heard it was still there back in the house I grew up in, multiple families having since lived there.
Before I learned how to play, I’d mess around with the strange levers, pretending I was starting one of those big rolls of music sheets for a party. But the essential parts to make it go on its own had long ago been dismantled. Maybe this piano didn’t have the life it dreamed of, cornered in our unheated glass patio room. But it had purpose. I might have been the only musician who learned how to play on it, but I was far from the only one who tickled these ivories.
This piano was used for laughter, ridiculous songs, bellowing about heartbreaks, and both joyful and somber worship/prayer times. As this friend would typically revert to playing Titanic’s theme song, I typically took the seat in front of the keys. Cable Nelson developed friendships without doubt. But the best thing he gave me was a connection to God and a way to process my emotions.
I doubt this was how Cable Nelson believed he would make a difference, a conduit for friendship, creativity, prayer, and learning rather than playing for salons of people. But I hope he knows I appreciate the part he played in helping me find my own purpose.
Finding Purpose
My own path to purpose hasn’t always been smooth, either. I had planned on changing the world. One of the ways I was going to do this was by inspire others with joy, connection, and truth with my musical poetry, behind a piano.
And although I played, was in bands, become a decent musician, wrote music, and went a semester-long school in Europe for it–it didn’t work out as I had dreamed. I got hurt and discouraged. I mostly hid this part of me away for ten or fifteen years.
How many of you have stories of making a difference in a certain way that was suffocated by life? Maybe most of you have experienced this in one way or another. Would you still want to make a difference in that same way, years later?
What always surprises me is how these dreams often act as bridges to what people engage in years later when they seek out purpose again. After going through a lot of healing, I now sing again. My husband learned to play the piano he originally bought for me, and now gets asked to play and records music with it. I still write poetry, even if not musically. For me, mine have morphed–but they still include being creative, writing, bringing inspiration, and a connection to LIFE.
Be Before Do
This is a little story that also represents a principle we believe here at Average Advocate, that we live more fully and make our best impact in the world when we put our Be in front of our Do. I thought it was about the music, becoming a musician, impacting people through my creative art. And in many ways, it was an
This is a little story that also represents a principle we believe here at Average Advocate, that we live more fully and make our best impact in the world when we put our Be in front of our Do. I thought it was about the music, becoming a musician, impacting people through my creative art. But what I didn’t realize was that I had made these things to Do my Be. Overtime, it became more and more evident that creativity and expression, encouraging, and connecting with God were really the drive.
I didn’t have to be a musician to find life fulfillment. I had to be creative and expressive in some art form. And it had to be used in a way that would encourage others and help me connect with God. These became my Be, which are part of my Life Mapping Priority Accounts now. How this happens, the Do, has changed. For awhile this was a musician. Right now it is as a writer. In ten years maybe I will find another way to live out this who I am designed to Be. Maybe not.
Or maybe in some ways I will always be a writer and a musician. But holding the role of a writers isn’t the direction I need to head in if something changes again that prevents me from this path. But finding some creative way to express myself is.
Maybe this is semantics, and I’m getting too deep into the weeds of Be > Do. But I did want to give you an example.
It can take a while to figure out, who we are designed to Be. Over time as we reevaluate again and again, we start pointing more and more to what values and desires really authentically represent ourselves. We don’t need to judge ourselves for these experiments. It is part of the process, the building of bridges. It is vital to give ourselves grace as we point ourselves towards Be.
What dreams did you have in your teenage or young adult years? How have you seen the build bridges to other dreams?
Next Steps:
- One of the ways I come alongside you is to rediscover their dreams and find their best way to make an impact. Schedule a 20-30 minute no-pressure discovery call with me here.
- Grab a free copy of the Purpose Roadmap to get you going or buy a copy of The Life Mapping Workbook
