to earn a living for thirty years to turn around and spend the
next thirty giving it away. If significance is what matters to
you, you can structure your life and work in a way that
allows you to live your legacy now. In fact, your giving
doesn’t have to be a by-product of your success; it can be
the very thing that drives it in the first place.
“We Are Your Symphony”
In the film Mr. Holland’s Opus, Glenn Holland is a
frustrated music teacher trying to compose a masterwork in
the margins of life. He never succeeds—at least not in the
way he hopes. Every time he gets close to completing his
symphony, some new complication arrives, and his work
must be put on hold.
A touring musician on sabbatical, Mr. Holland takes the
open music instructor position at a high school because he
thinks it will give him more time to compose. But as the
demands of the job increase and the pressures from home
build, he realizes how wrong he was. Over the course of his
teaching career, which he thought would only be a
temporary commitment to pay some bills, he inspires
students to continue playing music, struggles to be a good
dad and faithful husband, and battles a stubborn school
board that ultimately has him fired, all while slowly picking
away at his composition.
When Glenn learns his son is deaf, he realizes Cole will