For the longest time, I believed I wanted success
because I loved music so much that I couldn’t imagine spending time any other
way. At the ripe young age of fourteen to twenty-five, success meant millions
of followers, selling out stadiums, and an adoring fanbase hanging on my every
word and movement. Accepting anything else was settling for less or not
dreaming “big enough”. I was the person who thought, “Oh. You’re happy where
you are with your eleven-person audience? You’re not dreaming big enough,
darling. You’re not willing to work hard enough.” I pride myself on being a
nice person so seeing that in words…I can already feel my scrambled eggs
chugging back up my throat. What a shitsicle, am I right?! Oh yes, I do mean
me. I am the shitsicle. And this shitsicle was chasing fame and fortune, not
success and happiness.
Rewind back to TIFF ’16. I had gotten
tickets to a concert documentary of the man who started it all for me; my idol,
my role model, the artist who kickstarted my soul into realizing music was what
I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to meet this man, see him perform
live for the first time, and tell him how he changed my life. When you have an
epiphany about your passion, everyone remembers that one person or event that
was the catalyst to everything. He was mine but you know that saying, ‘Never
meet your heroes?’
I watched him sing with a smile on my face, I waited in line
for two hours to meet him, and I got to shake his hand. The moment was here but
the only word that came out of my gob was, “Congratulations.” I left with an autograph on a postcard and a
picture with ten other fans alongside him, both of which I haven't seen since. Seeing how people ogled his family and how they treated him the way
you would take a picture with an animal at the zoo, I felt empty. As quickly as
this man showed me how badly I wanted all of this, it disappeared just so,
leaving behind what I really wanted with my life sans the distraction of fame. I
wanted a creative life and career. I didn’t want people to be fanatic over me,
I wanted them to be fanatic over my work. So, that very night, I went home and
took down every photo or video that had my ugly mug front and center (of course that mug is larger than life in my post photo but I got sunglasses, that only makes me half a hypocrite). What I didn’t know at the time was that this was the start of a healthy and
much needed change in my life.
Don’t get me wrong, dreaming big is still
part of my daily life but the overwhelming expectation of these
far-in-the-future stretch goals had me frozen like a deer in headlights (random
PSA: hitting a deer is terrifying and dangerous so please be
careful when driving between dusk and dawn in a deer-populated area). What I
thought was laziness was my anxiety reacting to the unmanageable expectations
I’d put on myself. What I thought was a lack of motivation was my heart telling
me that I was caught up in the destination rather than enjoying what I loved. What
I thought wasn’t ready was my perfectionism not letting me see that I needed to
make mistakes to get to the person that I knew I could become.
In this year long journey that I’ve given
myself the time and permission to live, I’ve realized that I loved the rush I
felt when I read articles about success and how I could achieve it. I loved
scrolling through my social media feeds and seeing beautiful pictures of work
other people were doing because it gave me unproductive hope that I would be
creating work like that too. I loved being able to tell myself that the
pictures I saw of people online was not what real life looked like but secretly
holding it against them for having a perfect life anyway. I was caught up in
this romanticized version of life, this fantasy of what I wanted my life to be
rather than finding the magic in my daily struggle. At the end of the day, struggle
isn’t sexy. The triumph and success is. It’s so easy to get swept away in
imaginary triumph while I avoid trying to attain my own but you know what? Real
life versus a romanticized life can be just as beautiful. They don’t have to
compete.
So, in hopes of keeping my sanity, the
Anonymous Hustle series is my attempt at shining a light on my journey rather
than my destination. Whether I achieve my dreams or not, I wish I could tell
you that I did and that it’s everything I thought it would be so, y'know, you have something
to look forward to but I think that’s the beautiful quirk of it all. I have an opportunity to romanticize the struggle while I’m still anonymous in the eyes
of the public. To be perfectly honest, I’m still not sure what all this entails
so you’ll be growing alongside with me and maybe, some of that growth will rub
off on your life through pure internet osmosis. Then, then, THEN, our beautiful,
fulfilled lives will be forever entwined in this enigma that is li – I have to stop
before I lose you forever. Crap. Stay with me, friend! What I meant to end with
was, let’s celebrate growth with our daily successes instead of holding out for
this lit-ass, red-carpeted, caviar-drowning celebration to acknowledge a penultimate achievement
where we’re not even sure what it really looks like or if it’ll make us happy
(unless you already know in which case, do yo thang, honey). Why wait to be
happy when you could be happy now?
Until next time, stay bold and beautifully
weird.