87: You May Never Know Where It Lands

Recently, I found a playlist someone had created. There was nothing remarkable about it from the outside. It seemed new. It had very few views and no comments.

Someone had simply collected several songs and put them together.

But somehow, that playlist reached me at exactly the right time.

One song stayed in my heart. Another opened something I had not noticed before. I began seeing another landscape of life – huge impact in my life

The person who created that playlist probably has no idea.

Measured by the usual standards of the internet, the playlist has made almost no impact.

Very few views.

No comments.

No visible recognition.

Yet it changed something in one person’s life.

That made me think about how we measure contribution.

We naturally look at numbers.

How many people read it?

How many listened?

How many citations?

How many followers?

How much recognition?

For much of my life, I also lived in worlds where contribution could be measured: cases, publications, grants, programs, responsibilities.

But perhaps some of our most important contributions can never be measured.

Someone writes a few paragraphs.

Someone records a song.

Someone creates a playlist.

Someone says something quietly in a conversation.

Then they release it.

Nothing seems to happen.

But somewhere, perhaps months or years later, what they created meets a person whose mind and heart are ready for it.

The creator may never know.

It’s God’s work in this mystery.

I do not know exactly how God connects people, moments, words, and experiences. I do not need to understand it.

I only know that sometimes something arrives at exactly the moment I am ready to receive it.

This gives me a different reason to keep creating.

Not because I know how many people will receive it.

Not because I can prove that it matters.

Simply create what seems worth creating and release it.

Perhaps this is another form of surrender.

Act when the signal comes. Let go of what happens afterward.

Some things I create may disappear without touching anyone.

Others may travel somewhere I could never predict.

Maybe one day a song, a paragraph, or a simple thought will reach someone during a difficult moment.

Maybe I will never know.

And perhaps I do not need to know.

The playlist that affected me taught me something its creator never intended to teach:

Create what is yours to create.

Put it into the world.

Do not measure its value only by what comes back to you.

You may never know where it lands.

There is something deeply freeing about that.

And something wonderfully alive.

Perhaps that mystery is part of its beauty.