In the early to mid 1990s, Hootie and the Blowfish hit the scene with some great music.  The lead singer was of course Hootie.  Except he wasn’t.  His name is Darius Rucker but even today, people still refer to him as Hootie.  Until he transitioned from rock/pop to country music.  It seemed to be a strange transition and as a fan of Hootie and the Blowfish’s music, I wondered if I would enjoy the new Country Music of Darius Rucker.  I didn’t expect that I would.  And I was wrong – I love it!  He takes the best of his music style and adds the country music twist to it to create a new sound that also has the deep lyrics and messages of country music.  This week, I decided to analyze the lyrics from his 2010 hit, This. 

The song begins:

Got a baby girl sleepin’ in my bedroom
And her momma laughing in my arms
There’s a sound of rain on the rooftop
And the game’s about to start
I don’t really know how I got here
But I’m so glad that I did
And it’s crazy to think that one little thing
Could have changed all of this.

I love that the song begins with such a normal setup.  A child asleep in the bedroom.  Her mother laughing in his arms.  It’s raining outside and he can hear the patter of rain hitting the roof.  So many of us have been in that exact situation in our lives many times.  I can’t think of the number of times I was sitting on the couch, the kids asleep in their rooms, my wife in arm on the couch, as it was raining outside, and we listened to the rain hitting the roof.  The only thing missing in the song, ironically for a country music song, is the dog laying on the floor by my feet!  The normalcy of the situation is comforting.  The game is about to start.  Such a beautiful image in the first 4 lines. 

I am sure most of us can related to the next line.  I don’t really know how I got here.  When I look back at my life, it’s hard to believe how much time has passed, where I am in my life, and how I got here.  It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was in middle and high school.  The big party I had at my house in Harrisburg that we still talk about seems recent, not 40 years ago.  How can anything in my life be 40 years ago?  Married for nearly 26 years?  Two kids in their 20s, one a college grad finishing his master’s degree while the other is about to start his senior year of college.  Friends from 30 and 40 and even 50 years ago that are grandparents now.  I remember being in high school and listening to the Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime and singing out loud the famous line, “And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?” Now I find myself truly asking, “How did I get here?”

I love the last 3 lines.  First, I am so glad that I am where I am.  Truly grateful.  When I look back upon my life, there were many decision points that led me to this place at this time.  And in a vacuum, I might go back and change a number of them because in hindsight, by themselves, they may not seem like the best choice.  I look back and wish that I had spent a semester studying in Israel during college.  I wish that I had done a gap year after college in Israel and perhaps served in the IDF as a 21 year.  I made career decisions throughout my life that when I look back, I wonder what it may have been like had I chosen differently.  But in the end, I am grateful I am here and had I not made every one of the choices that I did, I wouldn’t be right where I am today.  Had I spent a semester abroad in college, maybe I would have done the gap year and served in the IDF.  Maybe I would have made Aliyah after that.  I’d have missed time with my grandparents and parents.  I’d never have met my wife or had the children that I have.  So yes, it would be meaningful to have had that experience, but I wouldn’t trade having that experience for the life I have today.  And that’s the reality of the end of the verse. It is crazy to think that one little thing could have changed everything.  Studying abroad for a semester in 1987 or 1988 may have led to me making Aliyah, having a completely different life, wife, and children.  Choosing to stay in accounting rather than go back to get my Master’s Degree in counseling would have led to a different career, not moving to Florida when I did, and another totally different life.  We make so many decisions every single day and never realize just how important and impactful each one is to the life we end up living.  And I love the life I have today and am grateful for every decision that has led me here, even when the results ended up not being what I wanted at that time, because the results ended up getting me here, where I am grateful to be. That is the butterfly effect – the idea that small things can have non-linear impacts on a complex system. The concept is imagined with a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon.

Maybe it didn’t turn out like I planned
Maybe that’s why I’m such, such a lucky man

For every stoplight I didn’t make
Every chance I did or I didn’t take
All the nights I went too far
All the girls that broke my heart
All the doors that I had to close
All the things I knew but I didn’t know
Thank God for all I missed
‘Cause it led me here to this

There is no question that it didn’t turn out like I planned. And no question that it is why I am such a lucky man.  I have learned over the years that my view of things tends to be very short term.  I can never really see the long-term impact of regular decisions until much later when life plays out.  Seemingly insignificant choices end up with huge, often life altering, results.

When I was in Seattle, we came back to Florida to visit my parents in Tampa.  As it happens, one of my dear friends, Sandy, was in the hospital in Tampa because she was having problems they couldn’t figure out.  Her husband Ron, one of my best friends in the world, let me know where they were, so I went to see them.  During my visit to their room, the doctor came in with a devastating diagnosis.  Glioblastoma.  6 months to live was the normal expectation.  As we all stood there in shock as this vibrant, healthy woman received terrible information, I was able to be the one there for both Ron and Sandy to help them process this shocking information.  I had moved across the country to Seattle.  I just happened to be visiting Tampa when she went to the hospital, in Tampa (they lived in Winter Haven).  And I happened to be visiting at the exact time when they got the diagnosis.  What are the odds?  Nearly 5 years later, as Sandy way outlived expectations, I called to say my goodbyes.  She couldn’t speak to me but could hear me as I talked to her.  About 30 minutes later, she died.  Again, what are the odds?  If I had done an errand before calling, I would have been too late.  As the song states in this verse, “For every stoplight I didn’t make, every chance I did or I didn’t take, all the nights I went too far, all the girls that broke my heart, all the doors that I had to close, all the things I knew but I didn’t know.”  Every single choice we make in life takes us on the path we are supposed to be on and makes us who we are today. 

My senior year of college, my girlfriend and I were very serious.  We went looking at engagement rings together, found one she loved, and I almost bought it.  She wanted me to buy it.  The jewelry store owner wanted me to buy.  I even wanted to buy it.  And the owner of the store made it financially possible for me to buy it.  But for some reason I didn’t.  About two months later we ended up breaking up and my life went on a different path.  How different would my life be today if I had bought that ring?  Would we have gotten married?  Had kids?  I believe we would have ended up being divorced.  Would I ever have moved to Florida?  Certainly not in 1992 like I did.  My career path would have been different.  Everything about my life would have been different with that one different choice. 

So, like the song says, Thank God for all I missed, ‘cause it led me here to this.

For many, many years I have believed the life is a tapestry and we only see the back end as we move along.  We see the flaws.  We see the strings and the extra yard or wool or silk.  It isn’t until we reach the right point that it is turned over and we see the beauty that we have created by living through what we saw as the mess.  Darius Rucker hits it right on the head with this song – everything we have today is because of every single small decision point along the path of life.  There is no need to regret any of these decisions because we wouldn’t be who we are, we wouldn’t be where we are, without every single one of them.

Like the girl that I loved in high school
Who said she could do better
Or the college I wanted to go to
Till I got that letter
All the fights and the tears and the heartache
I thought I’d never get through
And the moment I almost gave up
All led me here to you
I didn’t understand it way back when
But sittin’ here right now
It all makes perfect sense

This verse gives us more examples.  It’s as if he knows that we will struggle with accepting that every single choice along the way is what got us here.  And that by changing any single one of them, we won’t be who we are, where we are, today.  In high school, I fell in love with Duke University.  I had my heart set on going there.  I applied early decision and wore my sweatshirt that my mom and I bought on our campus visit every week at a minimum.  I was 100 percent sure that I was going to Duke for college.  I applied a few other places, but I knew I was going to Duke.  When I studied abroad in November 1984, I got my acceptance letter to Penn State.  My friends who were in England took me out to celebrate, but honestly, I didn’t care.  I wasn’t going to Penn State.  I was going to Duke.  What did it matter that I got in there?   Of course, as you have realized, I didn’t get in to Duke.  I ended up going to Penn State, where I met my best friends who are like brothers to me.  My life was completely altered for the better because I didn’t get what I wanted and got what I needed.  If I could go back and change things so that magically I would get into Duke and go there, I would not do it.  I would be a completely different person living a completely different life if I had a gone to Duke for college.  And I like who I am today and the life I have today.  I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Life has its ups and downs and plenty of challenges.  As the song says, there were plenty of times that I wasn’t sure that I would be able to get through whatever it was I was facing at that time.  I remember a number of them, as I sat alone, crying, and wondering what was going to happen now.  I almost gave up many times in many situations.  But I didn’t give up.  I did manage to make it through.  The same as many of you reading this were able to get through the things that, at the time, you thought were insurmountable.  In fact, as we look back, we may even find it silly that we thought we couldn’t get through these things, but that was who we were at that time.  As we sit here right now, it makes perfect sense.  Yet tomorrow, when we face the struggles and challenges that arise in our life, will we be able to remember that it really does all make sense, just not today?  Will we remember to thank God for all we miss, for the windows that open when the door we preferred gets shut?  Or will we be stuck looking at the back side of the tapestry, thinking that the mess we are looking at is really the art that will be final? 

Oh I cried when my momma passed away
And now I got an angel
Looking out for me today
So nothing’s a mistake

I have reached a point in my life where I know that I am closer to the end of it than the beginning.  It’s not as depressing a thought as I expected it to be.  As I look back, I am so lucky to have had so many amazing people in my life for the time that I had them.  Grandma Esther and Grandpa Si.  Grandma Ev and Grandpa Len.  Grandma Rose.  Grandma Florence and Grandpa Morris.  Grandma Cora and Grandpa Ralph.  They are my grandparents, my wife’s grandparents, and my great-grandmother.  My cousin Eric, who was my age and tragically died at the age of 27 in 1995.  My cousin Todd who died of an overdose in 2015 at the age of 42.  My niece Madeline, who died a few weeks after her birth.  My big brother in the fraternity, Jeff, who died young.  My Uncle Joe, who died at the ‘old’ age of 50 (I was 21 at the time and thought 50 was a good long life – how foolish we are when we are young.)  I wish this was the entire list but life doesn’t work that way.  We have the chance to build special relationships in our life and they end when they end. 

Of course, my father died in September 2022.  This has been the hardest of all for me, both because of the relationship we had and how much I was able to depend on him for guidance and advice.  I have cried a lot about my dad, both when it happened and ongoing since then.  I do believe he, and others, are my angels looking out for me.  I do believe that my dad and others continue to teach me as they were so influential in my life and development that it is as if I can ask them the question and they will answer. 

I agree that nothing is a mistake.  It may not be what I wanted at the time.  It may not be what I would prefer.  It may not be enjoyable either at the moment it happens or ever.  Yet everything that happens in life shapes us into the person we are.  We have the things we have in our life today because of every one of these choices.  The ones we made and the ones we didn’t make.  The ones we knew we were making and the ones we never even noticed. 

The song ends with a repeat of the chorus and while I typically omit the chorus when it repeats, in this instance, I think it’s important to cite it one more time. 

Every stoplight I didn’t make
Every chance I did or I didn’t take
All the nights I went too far
All the girls that broke my heart
All the doors that I had to close
Everything I knew but I didn’t know
Thank God for all I missed
‘Cause it led me here to this

It led me here to this

It’s a reminder that we face so many decisions every day in our life.  It seems as if some matter and some don’t’.  They all matter.  They all help us become the person that we are today.  They give us the life that we have today.  Since my father died, I have faced a number of challenging life situations.  It has shown me who in my life really cares and who was really transactional.  It has also taught me that if I value people, it is MY obligation to reach out and tell them.  It is MY responsibility to call or text them, even if just to say hi and I was thinking of you.  I know first-hand how much those calls and texts mean.  I know that sometimes they are the difference in somebody else’s life.  I have the ability to take the chances, to act, and to not allow excuses of things that don’t really matter get in the way.  Or I can choose not to take that action and let people fade away from my life. 

This song makes me ask myself the following:

Who do I want to be?

What are my values?

What do I stand for?

How do I show my gratitude for being who I am today and for the life that I get to live today?

Am I happy with the person I am and the life that I have today?  When I answer this last question with a resounding YES, it means I am accepting of every little decision or choice I have made, knowingly or unknowingly, because without them, I would not be the person I am today nor would I have the life that I have.