Jim’s Thursday Inspiration
Thursday Inspiration #340 Better Man
Better Man — Teardrops
When I saw Jim’s Thursday Inspiration prompt this week, my mind immediately went to one song:
“Teardrops” by Liam Payne.
At first, it was simply the theme that connected them. Jim asks us to think about Better Man, about making bad choices, settling for less, and the consequences that can follow our decisions.
Then I remembered something rather obvious.
In Teardrops, Liam sings about learning how to become a better man.
Well, Jim, I think you may have chosen my song for me. 💜
Teardrops was released in 2024, and to me it is one of Liam’s most vulnerable songs. It isn’t about pretending to be perfect. Quite the opposite.
It is about recognising that you have made mistakes.
There is heartbreak, regret and self-awareness running through it. He wonders whether he is the problem. There is also that image of checking his phone and trying to work out what he had done while drunk.
Some listeners have connected that part of the song to Liam’s controversial appearance on the Logan Paul podcast in 2022.
Alcohol was involved during that interview, and Liam later spoke about regretting things he had said and not liking the person he saw himself becoming during that period of his life.
Did Liam specifically write those lyrics about that podcast?
I don’t know, and I don’t think we should claim that he did.
But I can certainly understand why people hear the connection.
There is something painfully familiar about waking up after making a mistake and having to face what you said or did. Most of us won’t experience our worst moments in front of millions of people, but we probably all have something in our past that makes us think:
Oh God. I wish I could take that back.
The important part, perhaps, is what happens next.
Do we pretend it never happened?
Do we blame everyone else?
Or do we look at ourselves and say:
I need to do better.
That is what I hear when I listen to Teardrops.
Not a man claiming that he had always made the right choices, but someone acknowledging his flaws and wanting to become something better.
And that is why the song fits Jim’s prompt so beautifully.
Being a better man, or simply a better human being, doesn’t mean never getting things wrong.
It means recognising when you have.
It means taking responsibility.
It means learning.
It means understanding that the person you were during one bad moment doesn’t have to be the person you choose to remain.
We cannot rewrite yesterday, no matter how desperately we sometimes wish we could.
But we can decide what we do with tomorrow.
Perhaps that is one of the hardest forms of growth: looking honestly at the person in the mirror, accepting the parts we aren’t proud of, and still believing we are capable of change.
Sometimes our teardrops water the very ground from which a better version of ourselves begins to grow. 💜
🎶 Song choice: “Teardrops” — Liam Payne
With love, coffee, poetry, and stardust,
— Maggie The Afterlove Voice 💫
My new song “Silenced,But not broken ” is on all streaming platforms.
Lyrics video :
https://ditto.fm/silenced-but-not-broken
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