Right when you're about to give up, something right under your nose—something you desperately want and need—can change everything.

I am and will always be insatiably curious. Call it my profession and hobby. I don’t golf. I don’t collect things. I think. Friends tell me I think too much. It’s not something I can turn off. The best I can do, like the great line from the movie, “A Beautiful Mind,” is “put my mind on a diet.”

Now, whether I’m thinking or not thinking, I’m listening to music. Nothing has influenced my thoughts, mood, or feelings about anything or anyone more. Not prescriptions. Not caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol. Not even cheeseburgers.

If I love a song, I want to hear every song that artist ever recorded. No matter how old, or bad, or experimental. Years ago, a musician-friend looked me in the eye and said something I’ve never forgotten:

“Music is the language of God.”

I believe this. The right song can transcend all human understanding. The right song can make enemies into best friends. The right song can rescue a long-lost memory or dream.

Few things give me more joy than discovering new music. Not newly released music. I’m talking about when the sound waves of a melody hit my ears for the first time and cause my brain to snap a sensory image so I’ll never forget where I was and what I was doing at that precise moment.

“Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” by B.J. Thomas. I was two and happy. This song still makes me smile every time I hear it.

Nat King Cole’s album, “Love Is The Thing,” on my Dad’s High fidelity stereo for the first time.

Being 18 and scared shitless sleeping outside in a sketchy public park in then-Communist Budapest, Hungary. Hearing the faint echo of Peter Gabriel’s, “In Your Eyes,” playing from a car radio nearby.

Stuck in a hotel on a rainy night in Georgetown in 1998 watching David Gray’s “Babylon” MTV video.

Standing next to three buddies on the front row at Madison Square Garden when “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire blasted from the PA system just before U2 took the stage.

Not all of these moments are magical. Some are sad. Like last summer when I heard a Jeff Tweedy song also from 1998. I had no idea he had made a record in a band called, Golden Smog? And the song?

Oh, the song: “Until You Came Along”.

How could I love a song so much … and not know about it for 20 fucking years!

Such is life. (There’s a lesson in here for us, friends.)

No doubt, this song would have given me so much comfort over the past two decades had I known it. But guess what? I found it. It’s still with me. And it will always be with me.

Whether you believe, “everything happens for a reason,” or we’re all just spinning out of control in a cosmic mass of nothingness, it’s never too late for you to discover good things. Things that bring joy and meaning to you and *hopefully* to others.

A few days ago, I discovered a different kind of song. This beautiful tune had actually been with me all along. Instead of lamenting all of the possible what-ifs, I’m celebrating my discovery and all the new and good things and possibilities that it’s giving me.

So keep digging. Never stop asking questions. Dust off an old record. Read any poem by Billy Collins. There’s no shortage of goodness. But here’s the deal: it ain’t gonna discover itself.