“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman

A very common question I get from my friends in all sorts of contexts is “What should I do? What should I write? What should I talk about? What do you want to hear?”

And an answer I find myself giving a lot of the time is, “whatever makes your heart sing”. Whatever makes you feel alive.

Some people might find this to be somewhat evasive and glib, but I think it’s the most important thing. Steve Jobs and Wozniak used to do pranks for fun, and it led to them making blue boxes to ‘phreak’ telephone infrastructure, and Jobs went on to say that, without blue boxes, there would be no Apple.

Richard Feynman was goofing off piddling with spinning plates, following his curiosity, and that’s how he ended up doing the “pointless” research that led to him winning the Nobel Prize.

People in general tend to worry too much about what “the market” wants, or what other people want. But most people aren’t very good at articulating what they want. So the magic happens when you articulate what you want. In a world where people are taught to falsify their preferences, deny their desires, “conceal, don’t feel”, expressing your heart’s deepest desires is a tremendous gift. Your roaring self-acceptance gives everyone else permission to do the same. It is tremendous, it is radical.

Do what makes your heart sing.