Reminder: Keep your Head Up, Kid

“Simple Wishes, Challenging Realities” – Greg Drakes

I’ve come to a point in my life where I’m faced with a fork in the road that may either leads to disappointment or success; unfortunately, I haven’t figured out which road is which. It’s one thing to be pessimistic and another thing to be logical, but regardless, that train of thought is okay. In times of hardship, we turn to these life decisions as a blank canvas and paint our possible outcomes, stretching the words ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ one syllable further and one hundred thoughts deeper.

We all have dreams and we’ve been conditioned to believe that yes, if you work hard, you can achieve those dreams…but what our parents and teachers failed to tell us is that there will be 1000 other people with your same dream and you’ll be in competition with them every day. They also failed to tell us that your dream is going to cost money – whether that’s travelling towards it or paying for tangible products associated with it. I would add education, but I don’t necessarily believe you need historic concepts to achieve many ‘modern’ dreams, unless of course you’re pursuing a career in fields like medicine, science or law.

‘Simple wishes, challenging realities’ my friend Drakes wrote. That’s just it. We have such simple wishes and when that hard reality hits, you’re world is crushed. Someone recently asked me “Well, what am I supposed to do if I don’t have $1000 for a beat from said-production team?” And it hit me – why are we so stuck believing there’s one right way of achieving our dreams? We need to remind ourselves that there’s not a single route set to get to where you want to be. You determine that route. Of course, it may take longer, it may even be a more excruciating process but you will get where you want to be.

I told that person perhaps it’s a better idea to focus on a producer who has a similar sound at a more affordable price, but that’s not to say you can achieve your dreams without investing in them – whether that’s time, money, blood, sweat or tears. It may take 50 emails to find your music on one blog, but that one blog is a stepping stone into a global fanbase. Much like I’ll post this not knowing who’ll read it, but the one person who does is one person closer to what I want to accomplish with my life.

So as I exhale and envision these two roads ahead of me, I’ve now placed a connecting path in the middle. There isn’t a single way of achieving your dreams. Despite the uncertainty ahead of me, there’s no stop sign preventing me from moving forward either. Don’t forget these words. Keep your head up, kid.