Do Not Throw Away Your Shot!
I know I usually write about gratitude or green juices, but today I had to highlight a part of my life that has been making me quite happy. It’s a little phenomenon about a guy named Alexander Hamilton… You may have heard of him.
If you are one of the millions of people who watched (and fell in love with) Hamilton in the past few weeks, and your world was utterly shook by the combination of theater, hip hop, jazz, history, America now telling the story of America then, and everything in between, you are not alone. I watched it. I’m obsessed with it. I can’t say enough about it.
If you haven’t watched it yet, it's the perfect weekend to give it a whirl. You’ll learn a little history and hopefully appreciate the incredible work of these artists coming together, every night to perform this live. It’s pretty mind blowing. I do encourage you to let your expectations go, as I had to. Watch it and see for yourself. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t until days later that I felt the magnitude of this show and had to go back and listen to the soundtrack to feel what didn’t quite register after seeing it the first time. The show goes so fast!
When I find something that I love, I usually do a deep dive into the behind the scenes of it all. Even further than that, I love to know the why more than anything. I love the process of how things get made. I love learning what went on behind the scenes and all that goes on beneath the surface. In Hamilton there is so much more than meets the eye and that is always what I am most drawn to. Sure, I’ve already watched the movie three times and listened to the soundtrack more times that I care to admit, but it really did move me in a way that I was not expecting. Each time that I watch it or listen to it, I find something new to love about it. I hear it differently. I learn a new fact. I am moved in a new way. It really is unlike anything I have ever seen or heard before.
When you look at Hamilton, you might think that it just became an overnight success, but that couldn’t be farther from true. The show took over 7 years to make and become the legacy that it is today. Seven years! The song in the show “My Shot” alone took Lin Manuel Miranda over a year to write. It just goes to show that this is a work of art in and of itself. It shows how much thought and work and effort go into the plays and the movies and the books that we see pop out every week. People have to work really hard to get to the places that they want to go. And just because the end product is amazing, doesn’t mean the process wasn’t terrible or difficult or that people didn’t want to give up at times along the way. After all, that is what makes art art.
Hamilton wasn’t even supposed to be on Broadway. It originally started out as a hip hop album. But over time LMM realized what this could be, so he had to pivot. He had to take his vision and allow it to evolve. Not into what he thought it should be, but into the possibility and potential of what it could be. And thank God he did.
When we let go of what we think we want in life and what we think we need.. When we forget about who we are “supposed to be” and we just let ourselves be.. We end up exactly where we are meant to be. We have the power to become something so much greater than we ever imagined. We are all capable of becoming something that only comes around once in a lifetime. It’s possible. Hamilton is a reminder in so many ways that anything is possible.
Whatever you do…
