By Morgan. Stop waiting until life looks like you imagined, I tell myself. Your life is happening and serving you now, my mother reminds me. Abandon all road maps but the one in your heart. You are no longer on the same route as your peers, so stop trying to want what others want. Listen to the voices that agree with your own sense of what to do next. Worry more, says your ego and the cultural cult of busy and high salaries equating to success. Worry less, says your youthful heart and advice defying intuition. Worry about what matters, says your passion, because each day you put it off is a bet that you will have time and energy for it later on.

Music is this voice to me, like an anchor as I drift on waves threatening to pull me off course. Live music pulls me back to what I value, which is contemplation of life through various forms of art.

As I watched Lily and Madeleine perform a week ago I was inspired that they dropped out of college to create art and share it, even with small crowds. This passion rings true to me as a bit of truth in the universe. This is vague, I know, but maybe it will make sense to you. Being in tune with this truth is suddenly a way to feel safe in my own story, to trust that I am on the “right” path, whatever that may be.

These truths do not exist only in music, I also find them in books and in skiing snowy mountains (another form of art), but I like to believe they surround us if we choose to look. Flecks of truth float around us like gold in ocean waters, reminding us to focus on where we are now, to see our lives happening around us, and to be grateful for all we could not have asked for or planned.

This collection is a playlist I have created around songs that feel like anchors, like truths, like the realization that routine is an illusion and each moment of each day is new and full of opportunity for positive thought. This music is meditation and peace to me, and I hope it brings you the same calm.

Download S&N Mix 15: This Is Your Life

1. Lord Huron – Fool For Love
2. Gregory Alan Isakov – The Trapeze Swinger (Iron & Wine Cover)
3. The Lone Bellow – Call To War
4. Bear’s Den – The Love That We Stole
5. Lily & Madeleine – Can’t Admit It
6. Broken Back – Halcyon Birds
7. Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors – You’ll Always Be My Girl
8. Mandolin Orange – There Was A Time
9. Cattle & Cane – Red
10. Lucy Rose – Night Bus
11. Brandi Carlile – Happy
12. George Ezra – Coat Of Armor
13. First Aid Kit – Brother
14. Ben Abraham – I Belong To You
15. London Grammar – Strong