Never Fade by Jack Johnson

“It feels good to be the one that you want – when all I want is you.”  If I could write a love song to myself, this would be it.  We all fall in love with ourselves at some point in life.  Maybe it’s that we are proud of our accomplishments.  Maybe it was obvious when we moved to another place and could see ourselves against the blank canvas.  Maybe a break up revealed who we were and we were happy to finally see this without the other person.

 But, yes, it feels good to be the one that we want to be.  In the back of our minds, we have a picture of who we are and who we want to become.  Along the way, our choices and actions begin to reveal a clearer image of the picture that is hiding in the back of our minds.

I was just recently shuffling the iPod around and came across this song.  A lover of Jack Johnson and the ocean, I began to fall down the rabbit hole of my life.  As I fell, I saw the most beautiful visions of my past and present that have formed me.  Much of my memory is filled with different versions of sunsets, sand, and running along the water.  As I relived one of my favorite moments, sitting on the sand flicking shells and watching a picturesque sailboat go by, I could see that to every grain of sand this melody of Diane has continued to sing along.

I began to sing Jack Johnson’s “Never Fade” to myself, and what once seemed a love song that I wanted to share with someone else, became the love song to myself.  I felt myself craving every piece of the melody all for only me.  This made me laugh, because one of my Aunt Margie’s favorite lines about the nature of the Contreras’ is “it’s all about me” – well there you go.  I sang this song to myself as if I was playing the guitar on stage and looking out at the crowd.  I could see everyone’s happiness as they watched me close my eyes and fade out the syllables to myself.

Like the crowd, we are truly happy for others when they embrace who they are and share it with the world.  But, it is an even more amazing feeling to be on the other end.  To the ones singing to ourselves – we are in a heavenly state of feeling all of the dots connect and truly giving thanks to God and to ourselves for believing in one another.

In Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford a few years back, he stated this in reference to his own spontaneous milestones of life,

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.  This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

I believe that as we become closer to God, we are actually falling more and more in love with ourselves.  As we learn to love ourselves wholly, we naturally fade more into ourselves and to whom God calls us to be.  The image of ourselves in the back of our minds becomes clearer as we look backwards at the dots connecting, and in that moment, we are pleased to see that simply BELIEVING and TRUSTING truly works.

Allow this to be a testament for you.  At times we picture another person with us in our future or a breakthrough in our careers that leads us to complete success.  But playing this life to our fullest potential is actually much more simple.  Simply being aware of that image of ourselves in the back of our minds, is enough.

St. Ireneaus tells us, “The Glory of God is man, fully alive.” So be it then.  Allow the vision of yourself to become clearer through the moments of life and choices that you make.  If it does not ignite the same feeling as the love story going on within yourself and in your heart, then without hesitation head towards the route that leads you back to that vision of yourself and trust.

Sometimes when I forget the image of myself, I turn to music.  I allow the melody to take me where my mind and heart need to go.  The world slips away and I am lost in the dream of who I am.  Then, I see the waves again.  I see the sailboat.  I see myself, swimming without fear and without needing anything else in life but that truth in the vision and in the song.  A feeling of weightless grace overwhelms me, and I trust that the next thing I do in that moment will be true to the love song written to myself.

“… cause our love can never fade – no our love will never fade …”

The one love that we know we can believe in completely is this love within ourselves.  It comes from God and it pours out to others.  When we ride that wave by ourselves according to our own love song, we inspire others to find their love song and stay true to it.  We then attract those who want to ride alongside us – now that’s love.

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“Never Fade”

by: Jack Johnson

It feels good to be the one, that you want
When all I want is you

It feels good to be the one, that you want
When all I want is you

When I first saw you come across the room
And then you saw me, then I knew what to do
I tried to play it cool and attached no strings
But by the end oft he day, I needed the whole thing

It feels good to be the one, that you want
When all I want is you

It feels good to be the one, that you want
When all I want is you

You see I knew right then, that this could last so long
I went home that night, I wrote my first lovesong

And as the days went by, I knew I had it made
Well you could try to pretend, your smile gave it away

It feels good to be the one, that you want
When all I want is you

And It feels good to be the one, that you want
When all I want is you

And now here we are, how could we ever know
I knew I loved you then and I‘ve watched you grow
So it came to be, that I raised you and you raised me
We’re lucky that way, ‘cause our love can never fade

No our love can never fade yeah
Our love will never fade yeah
Our love can never fade yay

It feels good to be the one that you want,
When all I want is you, can never fade yay

When all I want is you, can never fade
All I want is you, can never fade

When all I want is you…