When There’s a Violin Playing

This morning, I was reading in bed. Window open, soft music playing from my laptop. Suddenly, different tunes began to mix with the mellow lo-fi beats: Someone in our quarter was playing the violin. They were clearly practicing, yet also good enough for a layman like me to barely notice the odd notes here and there. “Amazing!” I thought. “Real, live background music for reading!” I turned off Youtube and kept turning pages.

Some 20 minutes later, my girlfriend asked me to close the window. It was getting cold. I was happy to comply, and with the window, the violin melodies also fell — one into its lock, the other into silence. I turned Youtube back on and kept turning pages.

Before I eventually got up, I looked around the green area between our quarter’s many apartment buildings. “How many people live here?” I wondered. “200? 500? 1,000? How fascinating that a single instrument can provide the soundtrack for so many lives at once. Then again, how many will have listened? How many were even aware of the music?” Questions, questions, questions.

And even though none of them found answers, I did learn a lesson: When there’s a violin playing, and you’re lucky enough to hear it, listen. You can always return to the road to destiny, but you can never plan when life will give you a gift. Accept them as they arrive, and even if the timing isn’t perfect, chances are, you’ll still be glad you opened them later.

Appreciation isn’t about the volume of the music or how long the song lasts. It’s about seeing the good when it happens — and choosing to witness it while it does.

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This post was previously published on Niklas Göke’s blog and is republished on Medium.

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