Hello Reader,

A friend of mine was feeling the weight of work recently. They’re a musician, so when I searched for words of comfort, I found myself speaking in their language.

What came out was simple: “There’s a song in your struggles.”

It wasn’t advice, exactly. It was a reminder. Musicians know that tension is part of the score — dissonance comes before resolution. Without it, music loses its depth. And the same is true for our days.

Think about it: every struggle carries rhythm. The long pauses. The repeated notes of frustration. The sudden crescendo of stress. These aren’t just random noises — they’re the raw material of a composition. Dissonance makes us lean in, anticipate, and long for resolution. That’s what gives music its emotional power.

Life works the same way. Without its struggles, our story would sound flat. The off-key moments, as jarring as they feel, eventually resolve into harmony — sometimes in ways we never expect.

What if you treated your current challenges like music in progress? A project gone sideways could be a verse that hasn’t yet found its chorus. A tough conversation might be the bridge that connects where you’ve been to where you need to go. Even the silence — the rests — carry meaning.

Approaching struggle this way shifts us from trying to mute the noise to arranging it. Instead of fighting for control, we can listen for cadence, shape the measures, and trust that even dissonant chords have their place. That’s not productivity in the old sense — it’s productiveness. It’s composing a life with intention, using every note, not just the easy ones.

Look

Long before YouTube was crowded with content, OK Go found early success by turning constraints into creativity — think of their viral treadmill video Here It Goes Again. In their TED Talk, they explained how obstacles often spark their best ideas, and that spirit carries into their latest video, Love: rhythm born from limitation, creativity sparked by friction, and a reminder that what feels like struggle can become the very thing that makes your work sing. Watch it here.​

(By the way, if you ever get a chance to see OK Go live… I highly recommend it. My daughter and I saw them in Vancouver this summer and it was a great show.)

Listen

The Armchair Cynics – from my hometown of Victoria – sit down with Jonathan Simkin of 604 Records to revisit their alt-rock heyday, unearth lost demos, and reflect on the struggles and surprises that shaped their journey. From sessions at Little Mountain Sound to a hard drive discovery that brought their music back to life, this conversation captures both the tension and the harmony of a band finding its voice again. Listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Learn

Oliver Burkeman suggests that most productivity problems aren’t about distraction or motivation at all — they’re rebellions against the joyless grind of trying to “get through” lists. His invitation? Treat lists like menus: not obligations to slog through, but choices to savor. The abundance is the point, and the act of choosing is where meaning lives. Read it here.​

The Final Flicker

The next time you’re deep in dissonance… pause. Listen closely. Struggles don’t just weigh you down — they give you a melody to carry forward.

And when the harmony comes, it will be all the richer for the tension that came before.

See you later,
Mike

P.S. I’ve been curating a personal soundtrack — songs that take me back to different moments in time. I call it MMM: A Journey Through Time and Sound. You can’t add to it, but you can listen in. Maybe it’ll guide you through your own moments. Listen here.​

Thanks for reading. Your time is valuable, and I don’t take it for granted. In a world pulling us in all directions, thanks for choosing The Lantern.