What Lights Me Up? (What Lights You Up?)
Words and Music © 2016 Kayte Deioma, BMI
AuntieKayte.com

CHORUS:

What Lights me up? What makes me shine?
What makes me happy all the time?
That's the thing I can be
To show the world the best of me.

If music, dance or art fills your heart,
Creating beauty may be your part.
If numbers make you feel like a magician,
You could be an accountant or a mathematician.

CHORUS:

If you like rules that create order,
You could be a cop or maybe a lawyer.
If being in nature feeds your soul
Park ranger or gardener may be your role.

CHORUS:

If you wanna turn a frown upside down,
Maybe you could be a clown.
If it makes you happy to drive a digger,
You can do that when you get bigger.

Whatever thing you love to do,
That can be a job (the life) for you.
Just try your best, and follow through,
And you can make that dream come true.

What Lights you up? What makes you shine?
What makes you happy all the time?
That's the thing you should do
To show the world the best of you.

What Lights me up? What makes me shine?
What makes me happy all the time?
That's the thing I can be
To show the world the best of me.
To show the world the best of me.

Notes on What Lights You Up?

What Lights You Up? can be used on multiple levels. First, it can introduce the topic of roles people play in the world as adults. For example, younger kids may be able to identify a police officer, fire fighter, teacher or doctor as some roles adults play, while with older kids you can introduce more nuanced career choices and discuss what skills are needed to program a smart phone app, be a rocket engineer or design movie posters.

On another level, you can talk about different emotions and how some activities naturally make us feel joy while we're doing them. Those activities are different for different people. Some people bliss out dancing or painting, while other people are enchanted by solving problems and building things. It's normal that not everyone loves the same thing. That's why the world works so well. We would have a problem if everyone wanted to do the same thing.

You can discuss the joy of play and the joy of work, and value of both. What can you enjoy about something that isn't your favorite thing to do? While participating in some activities may make us happy while we are doing them, there is also the joy that comes from succeeding at something we don't naturally excell at that takes hard work and effort to master, or is simply a task completed. What are some small accomplishments that may not be fun, but can be a joy to finish (taking out the trash, cleaning your room, doing your homeowrk)? What are some things that bring more joy, the more you master them (learning an instrument, throwing a baseball, mastering the times tables)?