You may actually be surprised by this blog entry because unlike in my other blog entries I don't want to talk about my motivation or my career. It's easy to talk about confidence, success and how to live up to leadership expectations, but this time I strike a rather calm note and cover an almost philosophical topic.
Last week, I once again came across a song which inspires me to the fullest extent every time I listen to it. It's called Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen). It's neither a bombastic pop opera nor a lyrical love song. Well, to be honest, you can definitely call it lyrical and you could even call it a love song because of the message it tries to convey, but it certainly is not the type of love song you hear on the radio every day. If one speaks of love in connection to this song, it's love for life and all its beauty many people neglect most of the time. Maybe some of you already know this song and if not, I would appreciate if you listen to it carefully for the first time. You won't regret that decision because this song is truly beautiful on its own and it would totally be sufficient to make people think about life and what it means to them, but I don't want to stop at this point because its history is one of the aspects which impress me the most about this song. It's a history of an idea which had gone noteworthy ways before it was turned into this song.
Australian movie director Baz Luhrmann originally used a choral version of a Eurodance song called Everbody's Free (To Feel Good) by Rozalla for his 1996 movie William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet. Two years later, he sampled this remix and created Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen). The new lyrics, however, are taken from an essay called Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young which was written by American columnist Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune in 1997. Mary Schmich wrote this essay as an imaginary ideal commencement speech and structured it in the style of a poem by American writer Max Ehrmann from 1927: Desiderata.
Australian movie director Baz Luhrmann originally used a choral version of a Eurodance song called Everbody's Free (To Feel Good) by Rozalla for his 1996 movie William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet. Two years later, he sampled this remix and created Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen). The new lyrics, however, are taken from an essay called Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young which was written by American columnist Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune in 1997. Mary Schmich wrote this essay as an imaginary ideal commencement speech and structured it in the style of a poem by American writer Max Ehrmann from 1927: Desiderata.
Both, the song and the poem, address several key elements of life like family, friends, love, success and maturity. You may say that it's simple to name these as key elements because they are so obvious and eminent, but it appears to me that many people have forgotton about their meaning. Moreover, it's not enough to view each of these elements alone. The real challenge of life is to phase all of them with our own existence and development. There's no doubt about that this is a really tough challenge. That's why I truly like the term desiderata because family, friends, love, success and maturity - they are not god-given. You have to earn the well-being of each of these key elements by hard work and right decisions every single day of your life. Have you asked yourself: What are my desiderata? What am I looking for and what should I be looking for? How much am I ready to stake, how much would I sacrifice to realize their well-being?
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