Quite a few years ago, I was working up north on the oil rigs as an electrician.

I was living in the camp, and I wasn’t having a very good time.

We were working two weeks on and one week off, and I craved Freedom but felt like a prisoner.

I know some people love this kind of stuff and the money that comes with it, but I always felt stuck behind the camp wire. Locked into a tight schedule of wake-up work, bus back to camp, shower, go to sleep, and do it all over again.

It was the meanest, darkest, and most beat down I have ever felt.

Anyway, on one of my weeks off, I watched the Disney movie Zootopia. And in that movie was the song by Shakira called “Try Everything.”

It’s a fun song but it made me emotional for some reason. Like even though I felt like a failure, everything was going to be ok.

So I bought it off iTunes and put it on my phone. Every morning at 4:30 when I woke up and stood in line and got on the bus, I would listen to it all the way out to the rig site. On repeat.

It was a fun song that kept me from going super dark.

It kept me together.

And then, maybe a year later, I went to Disney and saw the Disney parade. They had Judy Hopps singing and dancing to the song, and the whole crowd danced.

It was kind of a big deal for me.

What’s your song?

-Ray