I received a lovely message today, reminding me (again) of how great it is to do something you love and so touching others in a special way. It got me thinking about work, money and joy again, just like I did 6 years ago when I started playing piano..I will elaborate on this, but first, with her permission, I am glad to share her love:

"Hi,

I have been meaning to write this email to you for some time now, nearly a year and a half!

I was in Queenstown from June-September 2011 and I had the pleasure of being able to hear you play by the water on many occasions. I bought your first CD there, which I still listen to.

A year and a half ago I was getting married and I didn't know what I wanted to walk down the aisle to. I knew I wanted it to be instrumental and emotional, and then I remembered you, and the way your music made me feel.

My bridesmaids walked down the aisle to "Sailing Escape", and I followed to "Without the Monkey". So many people commented on how beautiful your music was, and even now when my husband and I hear those songs we just start smiling.

I know you have stopped now, and I wish you all the best with your future ventures at home. I just wanted to let you know my story of how your music touched my life.

Rachel from Ireland."

Here is a photo she sent with her message. It's of my first days busking my way by the Lake Wakatipu. I got this feedback of when I was starting to play piano 5 years ago, now that I am done with it all.

Doing what I loved was and still is so rewarding! And in so many ways. My dream has been to play piano and create a bracket in time and space where people would eventually be inspired. Tick. My dream now is to implement my Tedx talk regarding Food, Shelter & Love.

Looking back at my piano experience, I found out that doing exactly what you love is successful when it is really what you love. The love you put through your actions is essentially, or so I believe, what makes the quality of what you do, what makes it as lovable and enjoyable to others. In other words, if you truly love it, it will work out!

I believe this. It clearly worked out for me with the piano thing. I had so much passion put into it, playing piano was an end in itself! Now, let's also be logical: I couldn't have hoped to get some sort of feedback from others by playing piano hidden in my underground all day, which I did for the first three months. It only made sense to allow for some interactions through exposing myself to the world, else I would have played for myself only, which was clearly satisfactorily, yet which would have been such a loss for both me and people. So I did love it on my own, but playing outdoor to the walk-byers was clearly going to have greater impact than on my life alone. So it totally made sense to do it.

I am now looking into designing another project coated with similar values that could possibly compete with the later. The complexity of the task is to optimize the nature of my person - what I like to spend my time at, my skills, character, inspirations, desires, dreams etc. - with my personal goals - financial security, stable job, diversity of actions, creativity, lifestyle etc. - and the ones I envision for society - abundance of local and healthy food, abundance of healthy, affordable and natural homes, abundance of beauty and inspiration ... again. Challenging, certainly. Impossible, probably not. I guess I will have to try in order to figure for myself!

My Piano Man experience clearly talks for itself. I might not succeed in this new venture, it might be hard, hell I don't know.. but there is nothing wrong with giving it a try :)

Stay tuned,

Mathias, from Belgium.