Michael Jackson: The Message We Weren’t Ready to Hear

I went to my local theatre last night to watch Man in the Mirror, and I have to say, it was so good. The music, the atmosphere and the dancing really brought Michael Jackson's music to life, and there were moments where you couldn't help but smile, sing along and completely get caught up in it.

But I came away with something more than just having had a great night. I came away thinking about Michael Jackson, and more specifically, about what he put out into the world.

Michael Jackson was the King of Pop, but when I look beyond the title, the fame, the incredible performances and everything that surrounded him, I see something else. I see a person who seemed determined to create his own world. A world filled with music, creativity, imagination, magic, love and messages about humanity.

That's what made him so fascinating. He didn't seem to want to simply follow what everyone else was doing. He created, he imagined and he pushed boundaries, and he was often criticised for it.

His appearance was criticised. His lifestyle was criticised. His fascination with Neverland was criticised. His uniqueness was questioned. People tried to understand him through the lens of what they believed a person should be.

But that was the problem.

Michael wasn't trying to fit into the world everyone else had created. Maybe he was trying to create something different.

And whether people understood that or not, he certainly made people feel something.

Watching the songs performed last night made me listen differently. Man in the Mirror. Heal the World. Earth Song. These weren't just songs. They carried messages about looking within, humanity, love, the world around us, what we are creating and choosing something different.

And this is where my own perspective comes in. I can't tell you exactly what Michael Jackson intended with every song, because I wasn't inside his mind. But I can tell you what those songs represent to me.

When I listen to them now, I hear something that feels incredibly relevant to what is happening in the world today. An awakening. Not necessarily an awakening in the way everyone describes it, but a shift. People questioning. People becoming more aware. People wanting something more meaningful. People beginning to realise that happiness isn't necessarily found in having everything the world tells us we should want.

It's found somewhere much closer.

Within.

I think Michael understood the power of creating your own happy place. For him, that seemed to be expressed through music, performance, imagination, Neverland and the world he created around himself. And perhaps we don't need a Neverland of our own. We need to discover what our version of it is.

What makes you light up? What makes you lose track of time? What makes you laugh? What makes you feel alive? Where is your happy place? What brings a little bit of magic back into your day?

Because maybe that's something we've forgotten to look for.

We spend so much time looking outside of ourselves for happiness, validation and permission, but what if some of the magic we're searching for is already within us? Maybe we just have to allow ourselves to find it.

Michael Jackson certainly wasn't everyone's cup of tea, and perhaps that's exactly the point. He was Michael Jackson. There was only ever going to be one of him.

And the same is true for every single one of us.

You don't have to be understood by everyone. You don't have to fit everyone's expectations. You don't have to make yourself smaller because someone else doesn't understand your way of being. You don't have to live a life that looks like everyone else's.

Be yourself. Uniquely you.

Because there is only one of you too.

This is where I find myself coming back to the word awakening. Some of the things Michael was putting into his music decades ago are things people are only really beginning to hear differently now. Maybe the message was always there. We just weren't listening in the same way.

Man in the Mirror feels different when you're looking at it through the lens of personal change. Heal the World feels different when you're thinking about compassion and humanity. Earth Song feels different when you're questioning our relationship with the world around us.

The songs haven't changed.

But we have.

We're becoming more open to the messages underneath them.

Michael's gift wasn't simply his voice, his dancing or his incredible ability to entertain. Perhaps part of his gift was making people stop. Stop and listen. Stop and question. Stop and feel. Stop and look at the world a little differently.

He created something that was uniquely his, and he was criticised for being different. But imagine if he had spent his entire life trying to become what everyone else wanted him to be. We might never have had the Michael Jackson we remember.

So there is something empowering in that.

Not that we should copy Michael, but that we can take something from the courage to create, to imagine and to be uniquely ourselves. To find our own magic. To find our own happy place. To hold onto the things that bring us joy.

And most importantly, to stop assuming that being different is something we need to fix.

Different is simply different.

And that's where the magic is.

I don't know whether Michael Jackson would have described any of this as an awakening. That's my perspective and my interpretation of what I felt while sitting in that theatre last night.

But I couldn't help thinking that so many of the messages within his music feel strangely relevant to the awakening that so many people are experiencing now.

Look within. Choose love. Find your joy. Care about humanity. Care about the world. Create. Imagine. Be yourself. Find your magic.

And the biggest message of all is not to lose yourself trying to become what the world expects you to be.

Michael Jackson created his own world. People questioned it. People criticised it. People didn't always understand it. But he created it anyway.

And that's something worth remembering.

Because we're not here to fit perfectly into someone else's version of life. We're here to discover our own.

And if last night's show reminded me of anything, it's that sometimes the message has been right there all along.

We just have to be ready to hear it.

And perhaps now, we are.