.... but are you happy?

It’s a question I often ask myself when I hit a milestone in my career. My answer always troubles me. When I moved to Nashville, I had one goal in mind: “Make it.” I needed to make it. I just had to. No matter the cost.

“I’ve got friends I barely know
I don’t know if I could be on my own
Did I build a brand or build a soul
Am I growing up or just getting old?”

Well, 10 years later, I found myself looking around… I still haven’t “made it” in the way that I dreamed that I would. Yet, I can’t even count the sacrifices I have made to even be at this point. Music has almost always taken priority over relationships and time with people I cared about. All I could see was my goal. I look around today, and I am surrounded by people that I call friends that don’t even know me. All for an image of success and popularity. All just to feel like, in some small way, that I’ve “made it.”

For 10 years, I have been comparing my success to the success of those around me. I made a conscious choice to change things about myself in hopes that maybe the opportunities that they were getting would come to me if I was more like them. Little by little I would mould my image into someone who looked successful, until I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. And it was all for… what? Was it worth it?

”I’m so depressed but I’m afraid to say it
I miss the days when we all thought we were the bravest
Laying in the grass, still no time wasted
But I fell asleep and I woke up on pavement”

If you have to sacrifice who you are to get what you think you want, is it going to mean anything when you get it?
If you get to the place you want to be without the people you care about, can you be happy?

I began to write the words to this song a while ago… beginning with the first verse. I thought back to the days when I first began playing music with my best friends in a garage. It wasn’t about “making it”. We didn’t think too much about how the details of our image are going to reflect on our music. It felt like a family coming together to do what we loved most. We weren’t worried about showing off how “busy” we are. We weren’t worried about what the band in the garage down the street was doing. We weren’t even worried about the next day. I have tried to recreate that feeling for many years.

Flash forward to 2019

Everything is different. Image is everything. Numbers define your worth as a creator. The most my friends and I know about each other is when our next release dates are. This is the life I sacrificed everything for.

As I dove into the production of this song, I began with the riff that begins in the chorus. It sounded the way I felt about everything. I thought about the choices I’ve made in life. About the pressures that we all feel every day.

“Make a difference, but make money
Work hard, but get lucky
Cry on your own, but look happy
Lose yourself, get what you wanted
Stay humble, but look busy
People know you, forget you’re lonely
Live long, stay pretty
Lose yourself, get what you wanted”

I was doing what I always wanted. I was spending all of my days in cowriters, studios, or in my own bedroom studio creating music. I didn’t have the “numbers” or the “fame”, but I was finally starting to produce my own music, which is something that I had never thought I would be able to do. So why wasn't I happy? The answer finally hit me: because I didn’t feel like me.

I reinvented myself so many times and came out with so many “epiphanies” to change my image.

One team I worked with swore that I could be “Nashville’s queen of pop.” Man, I was so honored that they saw me that way, even if I didn’t. “I’m up for anything. I want to make it. I’ll be whatever I need to be,” I thought. Fake it till you make it, I guess.
Me to my audience: “You guys, I know I was doing this thing before, but I’m actually a pop diva. This is me.”
Eventually, when they moved on to work with acts they saw more potential with, I was not only crushed and confused, but I realized I had absolutely no idea how to act like a pop diva on my own:
“Okay guys, I know I was doing the pop diva thing before, but actually this is who I am...”

Well… by this point, everyone was confused, including myself. I didn’t and still don’t blame people for jumping ship, because who wants to support an artist who doesn’t know who they are?

You guys… I’m tired. I’m done with epiphanies. I’m tired of people telling artists that their created image and identity has to be on point at every given moment. That’s no way to live your life, and it’s definitely no way to create music that means something to you. The music you create comes from your mind and your heart… and if you change your mind and your heart to fit someone else’s definition of “great”, does it even come from you anymore?

“I might be lost, can I wake up in simpler times,
like remember when we were just kids
and all we needed was each other and time?
Yeah I might be lost because all my best days
They all feel left behind, cause I’m here at the end
I thought I got it all, but now all I want is you and more time.”

That doesn’t mean I am giving up. No, I don’t ever plan on giving up. In fact, I am working harder than I ever have. I spent over a thousand hours learning how to become a better producer over quarantine because I want to be able to release music that feels like it’s 100% me. Instead of running blind down others’ paths to success, I’m out here digging up the dirt, clearing the bushes, and marking my own way. It might be slower, but it’s definitely more fulfilling, and at least if I do get there someday, I will know that who I am was enough to get there. If not, that has to be okay too. The first thing we all need to do is redefine what “success” is supposed to look like. Success means many different things to different people, but it’s definitely no one’s goal for it to feel lonely, passionless, or to not feel like ourselves when we do finally achieve it. If that’s how it looks in the end, the answer to “was it worth it?” will always be no.

“Cause I changed it all for just a single taste of fame
Just trying to not be forgotten when I leave this place
But lately I don’t care if they don’t know my name
Cause all my dreams did was take me far away…”

Are you caught up in that cycle that I was caught up in? Changing who you are as a person to be like those you compare yourself to? Sacrificing time and memories with people you care about in order to have the appearance of being “busy”? Trying to get back to that feeling you had when you began to create?

Take it from someone who changed everything with not much to show for it. Sacrificing time with people who are important to you will almost always equal many regrets, and losing yourself will always equal little success.

You know what guys? I’ve learned that taking a walk with my dog instead of posing for an hour for a selfie of me producing in the studio isn't going to affect a single thing of my career. I’ve learned that just because “so and so” has this opportunity, that doesn’t mean that I will have that opportunity if I try to be like them. In doing so, I might miss opportunities that are perfect for me, as I am. I want to live and work and create in such a way that at any point in my career when someone asks me, “But are you happy?”

…the answer will be yes.