I Found My Soul in a Michael Jackson Song
Stop mistaking a painful struggle for a meaningful life.
Core Insight
In this article, I explore the human need for meaning and why questioning one’s purpose is not a sign of failure. I reflect on how meaning emerges through personal narrative, lived experience, and alignment between values and actions. Rather than treating struggle as something to eliminate, I examine how it often plays a role in how meaning is formed over time.
This is article #3: The Need for Meaning
Part of a 7-Human Needs series on Why We Do The Things We Do.
Feel free to go through the other articles in the series:
Need #1: Safety
Need #2: Curiosity
Need#3: Meaning (You are here)
Need#4: Belonging
Need#5: Thriving
Need#6: Overflow
Need#7: Freedom
Recently, one of Rashi Umapathi’s Note caught my eye.
Naturally, I commented:
As I wrote them, my life flashed back. Back to those beautiful days where I played the saxophone in school.
My mum didn’t understand my passion. To her (and many parents), studying hard and achieving good grades is how you succeed in life.
While I wasn’t the best, I was pretty good at playing saxophone then and was promoted to become the band major in my school band. My grades were average, though I didn’t quite care (just like many teenagers). Besides practising saxophone, I spent most of my time doing “band duties” as a band major and developed “leadership” skills.
This leadership skill would then follow me into my corporate life later where all the non-stop hustling begins.
Looking back, I realize that all those “hustle” being the band major probably laid the first brick of my High-Performance Shield. Subconsciously, it was the moment I learned the significance in my value wasn’t in the music itself but the “prestigious attention” that I enjoyed due to the rank I held. I stopped playing the saxophone to enjoy the melody and traded the joyous exploration of music for the “achievement”.
In the real world, we do the same thing. We take our natural talents, the things that should be our path of least resistance and we wrap them in a pretty wrapping paper call “Force”. We force ourselves to “lead”, “optimize” or even “disrupt” because it makes us feel like we matter and that we mean something.
The Sound of Forced Brilliance
If you’ve ever listened to a musician who is trying too hard, you can always feel something’s missing, much like asking AI to write our story. It’s technically correct but you can’t feel the soul.
We were raised on a script that told us significance is earned through the size of our struggle. And if something is easy, it’s lazy. If a project is effortless, it’s unimportant. And if we aren’t exhausted by the end of the day, we haven’t done anything that matters.
The Significance Paradox
The harder you hustle for meaning, the further it retreats. When you try to force it, you aren’t flowing in your own brilliance; you are performing, for no one.
This is the Industrial Era trap. It forces us to use our achievements as a way to prove we deserve our place on this planet. We chase meaning because we are terrified that without a massive, visible impact, we are invisible.
However, brilliance doesn’t respond to force. It responds to ease. Where there’s ease, there’s flow.
Significance is a Byproduct
As usual, nature doesn’t try to be significant. A tree doesn’t grow tall to prove a point; it grows because it is the path of least resistance for its biology. It simply participates in its environment, and the significance (the shade, the oxygen, the beauty) happens as a natural result.
Your brilliance works the same way.
Reclaiming Your Original Melody
One day, a bunch of us uniform groups were hanging at the school field and I was challenged by a schoolmate to play “You’re Not Alone” by Michael Jackson. Mind you, I have never seen the score before, let alone played it. The entire field went quiet. Because someone just challenged the Band Major.
I didn’t know what came over me then, but I just close my eyes.
And I played it.
The next thing I know, the schoolmate who challenged me was singing right along and when I opened my eyes, she was also dancing to it and people around were joining in the fun.
Like I said earlier, I definitely wasn’t the best saxophonist. I was able to do it because I learnt to feel the music and it became easy to flow with it.
That is your inner brilliance too.
Whether you’re stuck writing your next article, building your next AI tool or even creating your next masterpiece, you have an inner brilliance guiding you, should you allow it to.
Ask yourself:
Where am I forcing a role on something that just needs my presence?
Where am I using my achievements to earn my right to be here?
What would happen if I just sit and listen inwards?
Achieving success in anything requires you to follow the path of least resistance. No doubt, the path is not always smooth and we may stumble and fall from time to time. But we can also get up and try again while listening inwards and guiding ourselves onto the right path. If need be, we pivot.
Your most meaningful work will always be the work that you feel it from deep within you. It is the thing you do so effortlessly that you almost feel guilty charging for it.
When you drop the Shield and stop trying to prove that you matter, you finally have the energy to actually be who you are meant to be. That is where significance lives. It’s not in the hustle; it’s in the unforced flow.
Finding the Path of Least Resistance
To trigger your inner brilliance this week, ask:
Where does your curiosity naturally want to go?
What feels like a “pull” rather than a “push”?
What would you do today if you didn’t have to prove your worth to anyone?
Know that you do mean something.
You are the significance in your world when you allow your inner brilliance to lead. So stop chasing and hunting for significance and let it flow through you. It’s right here, in the quiet spaces where you finally allow yourself to do what comes naturally.
The meaning of your life is the rhythm you allow.
Missed a step in the series?
Article #3: The Need for Meaning (You Are Here)
💡 Question: This has been a heavy piece to me and frankly, it took me much longer than usual to write it.
I would love to hear how you feel after reading, please share it in the comments.
P.S. Creating from a place of Sanctuary requires a commitment to rest. If you’d like to support the “Unforced Brilliance” of this series, you can buy me a bubble tea. It’s a small act of participation that helps keep this space thriving.
This article is #3 in the series of 7 Human Needs – Why we do the things we do?
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You are so authentic and real, Jean. I just love you for that. You mean what you are saying, and I can feel that. It's beautiful. 💖 P.S. I LOVE THAT YOU PLAYED THE SAXOPHONE!! I think that's awesome. P.S.S. I also love the photos you share. It underscores your realness. This is all such valuable commentary and it's correct. Thank you!