"All These Things" by OneRepublic, Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Ryan Tedder might be the most successful pop musician to have graduated from Oral Roberts University, an Evangelical college founded by the evangelist of the same name and which spawned preachers such as Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, and Ted Haggard. I remember when OneRepublic debuted in 2007 with their song "Apologize." Tedder talked about his religious background in interviews and how he was influenced by CCM music when he was growing up. Another group, The Fray, had debuted two years before OneRepublic with a similar story and hometown in Colorado. Christian radio fell hard for The Fray, playing songs like "How to Save a Life" and "You Found Me" on Christian radio stations. They didn't fall in love with OneRepublic quite as much. Both bands were multi-platinum bands, but OneRepublic stuck around longer than The Fray whose third and fourth albums failed to achieve the greatness of their first two albums. 

YESTERDAY'S GONE. I discovered this song last May. "All These Things" is not a hit and it is in the middle of the album. I haven't kept up with OneRepublic's career past their second album 2009's Waking Up. Pop-rock kind of gets old after a while. However, the lyrics of this song stuck with me. In the middle of the pandemic, the school schedule kept changing and the supervisors kept changing the expectations of students and teachers. We had never taught online before, and although we had used many resources to create class materials, we had never met students online. To make matters worse we were given no time to learn how to do it. We were just told to do it. One of my coworkers threw himself into learning technology. He spent his weekends working and creating content. But he got pretty burnt out. Sure, he was experiencing more success than others, but they were able to use what he learned and mostly have their weekends off. The burnout my coworker experienced made me think about what in life is really worth investing your time in.

GIVE YOU MY YOUTH FOR SOME MILLION DAYS. This line from the song made me think about the investment in time. I had to do the math. One million days is 2,739.73 years, a number that far exceeds a lifetime. In Korea, anniversaries are counted in days rather than years. Parents celebrate a baby's 100th day of life. This has roots in a time of high infant mortality, and a baby that survived 100 days was to be celebrated as a successful life. Similarly, Korean couples (and some foreigners who date Koreans) celebrate the first 100 days of their relationship. With every 100 days, a relationship is celebrated and evaluated. Is it worth the time and effort? Today is a very special day because it marks my 2000th day in a relationship. 2000 days is nowhere close to a million, but a lot can happen in that amount of time. For some context, Apple TV+ has a documentary series called Becoming You which follows children from around the world for from birth to their 2000th day. A 5 1/2 year old child has learned how to walk, talk, tell a simple joke, goes to school, counts to 100, and can help out a parent do tasks. Two thousand days can span the tail-end of a presidency, a very bad one-term presidency, and the first days of yet another president. Korean conscription is only 36% of 2,000 days. It spans the time of six one-year contracts. Korean middle school students in their second semester will have graduated high school in 2000 days. I don't take today lightly. I believe I've spent my time well. We never know for sure if things are going to work out, but the investment of time and effort can make a very happy life.

Read “All These Things” by OneRepublic on Genius