Songs About March

How time flies. March 6th, and halfway through the semester.
March is a beautiful month. The snow melts, the sky is blue again and everything seems to be coming back to life. Every day is a bit longer than the day before, suggesting the bliss of summer.

I thought I could share some songs that I love about spring, or March.

Jon Foreman - March (A Prelude to Spring)

Short and sweet. I can't get tired of Jon Foreman's music. It is simple, introspective and evocative.

Elis Regina - Aguas de Março

A Bossa Nova masterpiece. The lyrics don't really mean anything, to be very honest, but the song is very poetic.

Stacey Kent - Les eaux de mars

This is Stacey Kent's interpretation of the French version of the same song. I like Stacey Kent, sometimes. Her version of Les eaux de Mars is a classic.

Vivaldi - Spring (The Four Seasons)

This one is for my dad who has always loved Vivaldi's music. It is nearly impossible to listen to this without wishing you could play the violin.

Sufjan Stevens - Redford (For Yia-Yia and Pappou)

This song is not about March, or spring, but I wanted to include it because it is just breathtaking.

Hope Deferred

Hope deferred 

Makes the heart sick.

But a longing fulfilled

Is a tree of life.

Why does the human heart have longings? Why do we have goals, dreams, expectations?
Why is the ''heart sick'' when those needs are not met?

Proverbs 13:12 says that ''hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.'' I am assuming this verse is referring to good, or healthy longings.

While good, healthy, wise longings are a ''tree of life'' when they are fulfilled, bad or unhealthy desires can become a great pain when they are fulfilled. Some things just keep asking more and more of you every time.

Some, for example, will only be ''happy and satisfied'' if they succeed in being the best at everything. But the satisfaction that comes from, say, winning a competition or getting the best mark on an exam is very short-lived. Pretty soon there are new competitions, new classes, new exams, new jobs, and the previous success seems now all forgotten: you have to start again from scratch.

A good longing, when fulfilled, is a tree of life. Trees usually live and last a long time. They don't vanish overnight. Many trees were there before we were born, and will still be there after we die.
Trees are not still. They are strongly rooted, and grow stronger and stronger every day. They are not barren: they produce flowers, fruit and seed. From a tree's seed can spring another tree.

[Wisdom] is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed (Proverbs 3:18)

Brief Thoughts On Growing Up

As I am getting older and working (or rather studying) my way through life, I am often evaluating and re-evaluating whether or not I have succeeded in the goals and objectives I have set for myself. Time flies, and it often seems like I have been too busy and didn't have enough time (and discipline) to become who I wanted to be.

When we are young, we have a certain idea of what we want to be like as adults. At the time, it seemed like adulthood was ages away; we thought we had a great deal of time to suppress our bad habits and flaws, to work on developing certain qualities and become that ''ideal person'' we had in mind.

It turns out that our time is short, that our faults are persistent, and that virtue requires a lot of discipline and self-sacrifice.

Someone once told me:
''Don't sacrifice what you want for what you want right now''

I can find two applications of this principle:

1. As a university student, it is sometimes very tempting to yield to the temptation of escaping my homework and readings in order to do more ''pleasant'' and ''entertaining'' things, such as wasting time on the internet, watching one of my favourite movies, etc.

It seems like a natural inclination to want to sacrifice what I want (an education) for what I want right now (leisure).

2. Paradoxically, what I want can become what I want right now in light of other priorities. Maybe the thing I want right now (an education, a career, traveling, for example) can become obstacles to what I want (the big picture for my life).

What exactly is the reason for our life? Do we live up to it? Or do we forget the big picture because we are focused on what we want right now?