On Purpose

I’m currently sitting on my laptop, writing. It’s 1am. I’m in Hollywood, California. I just left a club at midnight. I haven’t been to a club in over a year; I remember why now. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what I’m doing. Then again, I don’t think anyone truly and surely does. However, I’m realizing more and more that I certainly have zero clue.

Let me backtrack a little bit; for as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to entertain. I enjoy being a character, I enjoy entertaining an audience, and more so than anything, I enjoy bringing a smile to someone’s face. That’s always been my goal; to create content, tell a story, and provide a bit of fun to other people’s lives. That all changed about 12 months ago. What happened? I fell in love.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like the girl I was with wanted me to change or like she forced me to act a certain way; it was totally a subconscious change on my part. I cared more about supporting “us” and our future together than anything else. My personal goals, ambitions, hopes, and dreams flew right out the window and all I cared about was the relationship. It’s a very dangerous game to play, being so in love, and it’s not always a positive thing. I ended up losing sight of myself and became someone I no longer recognized and someone I genuinely didn’t like.

Long story short, that sort of attitude can’t last. You can’t live your life for someone else or prioritize someone ahead of yourself; it just doesn’t work that way. I wasn’t aware of how lost I truly was, and it was also unfair to her to put so much pressure. She fell for a guy that wanted to achieve greatness, not this guy waiting on her hand and foot. In the end, it fell apart. Feeling like you’ve lost “the one” sucks, but in a way I’m also glad it ended because it forced me to realize the error of my ways and start to get back to being myself.

I believe that you can only truly classify something as a regret if you didn’t learn anything or get anything from it, therefore I wouldn’t call this a regret. There’s absolutely things I would have done differently and I truly believe that with the right mentality everything could have been perfect, but that just isn’t what happened. Not only did I learn a tremendous amount about myself and learn some extremely valuable lessons, but I also had some of the best times of my entire life, was able to learn what true happiness feels like, and learnt that I’m capable of loving more than I thought possible.

That’s all well and good, but it’s not the reason I’m writing this. I’m writing this because I’m currently lost. I used to love creating, I used to love socializing, I used to love going out and partying, I used to love being a personality and standing out. Then I started to settle down. I much preferred ordering some food with my person and watching The Voice in our sweatpants as opposed to going out and grabbing drinks at a crowded bar. For all intents and purposes, I totally started settling down and I loved it. The problem is, now that she’s removed from the picture, I don’t really want to stop settling down. The ship is heading in a certain direction and I can’t just pull a 180. The only difference is that she’s no longer involved and that makes it a very, very different experience. There’s a big difference between hanging out with someone 7 nights a week and not doing anything, and doing it by yourself.

So I figured it’s time to get back to my old ways. It’s time to start turning this ship around and get back out there; get busy creating stuff and being a character and making a name for myself again. I figured I should use this opportunity as a gift to pursue the thing I wanted all along yet lost sight of. So, I booked a trip to California (I had some money I was saving up for something I won’t be buying anymore) and figured this would be the spark I needed to get back into the mentality that I lost all those months ago. Here’s the real interesting part, though: I’ve been here close to a week and it’s sort of done the opposite. I’m not even sure if this is what I want anymore. I’m hanging out with friends who are popular YouTubers and touring musicians and successful writers and technically I should be in heaven, but all I can think about is how exhausting it all seems. I’m super happy for all these people and genuinely proud of them, but I also don’t see myself as one of them the way that I used to.

Take tonight for example; I went to a pre-drink at a friend’s apartment with a bunch of music producers and music industry people. Then, we went out to a club where we were ushered in specially and there was a private table for us with free bottles of booze. Theoretically, that’s awesome. However, it’s now about an hour later and I’m already in shorts writing this very post in bed. At 24, I’d have been grinding with a girl on the dance floor right now. At 28, I’m thinking about not staying up too late so I can make sure tomorrow is a productive day.

Unfortunately, there’s no big realization or conclusion to end this post with; it’s just sort of a reality that I felt the need to express. I know that I can’t have the life I was ready to commit to, that it’s no longer an option. I also know that I was on a path lacking in fulfillment or purpose, so I should be happier about the fact that it’s no longer my reality. On the flip side, I also know that the idea of worrying about followers and subscribers and post engagement and collabs and a release schedule sounds like a nightmare. That’s just me being honest with myself at this moment, and I’m hoping that attitude changes over time. Sometimes life doesn’t go the way you want it to or the way you had planned, and it sounds cheesy, but you really do just need to do the best with what you’re given.

I think my best course of action is to just do. I shouldn’t worry so much about outcomes and I should just focus on doing what feels right. Whether that’s articles, videos, songs, taking on clients, pursuing new avenues… whatever it is, I’m suddenly gifted with the ability to try. That freedom to try, although frightening because uncertainty always is, is also beautifully liberating to a degree.

It’s not that I couldn’t try before, because I absolutely could have, but I didn’t have a need to. I had this person, and that was enough for me. However, in hindsight, I used that person as a bandaid to cover up the more pertinent issue at hand: what do I want? I avoided figuring myself out and instead focused on what I had; so much so that I focused too much and destroyed it. So here I am now; an entrepreneur without a company, an artist without a canvas. I feel ambitious, creative, and motivated again for the first time in quite some time, but unsure of what direction to aim it all in. I need to start doing and start trying, and hopefully things will begin to figure themselves out. Life is funny that way, sometimes. So be on the look out, because I don’t know when it will happen and I don’t know what it will be, but you’ll be hearing from me sooner than later.

Thanks.

“Solid on the surface as I crumble within, but legends are made out of vulnerable men.” — Bubba Sparxxx