Recently while working one afternoon with the fine people from Trustkill Records I received a call from an old classmate inviting me out for drinks. A bunch of them came in from out of town to spend the holiday with family and friends, so we got together to catch up. Upon me entering the bar, I stood back and checked out my former classmates. Each one of them was donned in expensive clothing, their Lexus and Mercedes keys laying haphazardly on the table like the ante in the poker game of life, and costly bottles of import ale sat empty around them. The real reason for this trip was to see who was doing better and for a moment I felt ashamed. I stood there with my ‘97 Honda Accord keys hanging from my camo cargo shorts I bought from army surplus (those shorts are indestructible!), my old Ten Yard Fight t-shirt, and cheap domestic beer. There was a moment where I thought I would turn and run away, embarrassed the people who were my peers would see me as something or someone less than them.
After some drinks we got to talking about our lives. Who was doing what? Who was living where? I kept quiet for the most part, until someone asked me. I explained to them I ran a website, and that it was geared towards subculture and lifestyle. They asked questions, inevitably getting to the real meat question, and one that every self starter fears. “So is it making you any money?” I blushed and said no, but explained how most of these things take time. They smiled and seemed concerned for me. I left the bar that night feeling rather low. I went home and checked FaceBook, seeing those people, and more of my peers spending lavish vacations in destinations I’ve never been like Hawaii and Tahiti. Pictures of them laughing and cheering at sports games and on wave runners. Standing next to expensive cars, and buying homes. There was a moment where I felt like the biggest waste ever. I went to bed that night feeling rather defeated and ashamed, vowing that the next day I would be more like them.
Sitting down with friends of mine who are so goodly enough to work for YPA Press, we talked about the plan of mine to “be more like everyone else” the next night. I’ll never forget that conversation as my friend Kat turned to me and said simply: “I want you to sit back and take a look at your life. Where you were before YPA and where you’re headed now. It’s a lot better place, and the future holds so much for you. You’ve got a lot of potential otherwise your dreams wouldn’t have taken you as far as you are now. And keeping up that PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) is only going to help perceive things in a more positive manner so that you can overcome everyone elses’ expectations and start REALLY living for YOU.”
In that quick statement I realized something I’m going to share with all of you now. Not everyone is like you (no shit right? Thanks a lot Justin for telling us something we already knew, but listen I’ll explain why.) People are intimidated by people like you. People are jealous that we are truly individuals, not just in appearance, but in ideals and ideas as well. That no matter how hard we struggle, we get to be and do what we really love. Not just sugar coating or compromising our whole lives to please the expectations of others. Parents, friends, teachers, etc. they’re all going to try to tell you along your life’s path that what you’re doing is stupid. To this day my mother still asks me “are you still doing that hardcore stuff?” That somehow the tattoos will wash off, the haircut will grow into something resembling more a news anchor, and I’ll be on my way to being a doctor the very next day.
For some of us, the suit and tie route is comparable to wearing an orange jumpsuit and being behind bars. The cubicle becomes the ultimate cell, and the 9-5 routine a prison it’s own right. Family and friends will tell you to grow up, get a real job, move out of the crappy apartment you’re in and get married and have kids like them. Just because the people who love you as family don’t except the choices you make, doesn’t mean they’re bad choices. I heard Tony Hawk speak once about his life as a skateboarder. His family laughed when Hawk told them he could make a living riding a piece of board with wheels attached to it on a big U shaped ramp. When Hawk got his first sponsorship deal, he photocopied the check and faxed it to his family with the words “I told you so,” written in black marker across the top.
People like Tony Hawk, Freddy Madball, and others forge their own paths each and every day. My grandmother was told by her mother that women didn’t go to college. She went back at age 50 to get her Masters Degree in social work. If there is something you want to do, do it. Do not worry about what others are doing and their successes as long as you’re happy with the things you’re doing in life. Whether it be a Chef like Dave Pharo our cooking columnist, a porn starlet like Misti Dawn whose studying to be a veterinarian, or deciding to start a website like yours truly. To quote Willy Wonka, “we are the music makers, the dreamers of dreams.” If you can dream it, you can do it. Don’t let yourself or those around you who are worried about you failing make it so you never succeed.
We want to know your opinion! Let us know what your dream is, and what you’re doing to make it happen. If we can help, YPA Press will hook you up. We’re not Oprah, so don’t expect we’ll give you a new car or finance your home, remember it’s young, poor, and angry for a reason, but let us know via Twitter or comment and we’ll see what we can do!
Justin, I love this one! I even have to admit that I got a little teary-eyed because I could imagine exactly how you felt. Running an art store doesn’t bring in oodles of cash but I do love it and I’m proud of it and isn’t that what matters?
This is all to familiar, that fight with oneself on a daily basis to stray from the path that you chose, to go and fit the “norm”. I deal with this more often than not, but I continue the path I chose and that’s what I will continue to do until I am happy doing so. I’m almost 30 Straight Edge, run a small but successful print company, tour, and will soon have a new project to the surface. So with that being said everyone should not worry what other people think of what your doing, and that its not just about the material things and the money you make. It’s about what makes a person truly happy.
http://www.myspace.com/pirateapparel
http://www.myspace.com/idontevencarect
LIVING THE HARDCORE DREAM! UP THE PUNX. love the site, love this article.
To paraphrase a story I’ve heard:
“A teacher asks her students to write down what they want to be when they grow up, and one of the students writes ‘happy’. The teacher tells him he doesn’t understand the assignment and he tells her she doesn’t understand life.”
Next time somebody asks you are, say “happy.” When they ask what you are doing, say “what I love.”
They’ll be the jealous ones, Mercedes or not.
Thanks for sharing this Justin, well said.
So many people have the appearance of riches…but are really living a hypocritical lifestyle with debt up to there eyeballs. We need to redefine what true success is. You can live your whole life a rich and alone and miserable.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. I absolutely agree. My family doesn’t support the fact that I’m doing porn now but the fail to see that it’s just what I want to do, regardless of the difference in our moral standing. Doing porn doesn’t make you subhuman. I don’t EVER plan on having some 9-5 corporate/professional job but yes, I do have goals and I do want a real career someday. I am studying marketing and pr and hope to get into music business perhaps. I want to, in some way, help punk/metal/hardcore music get out there. So essentially my goals involve sharing my two favorite things with the world: music and sex.
Thanx for the inspiration!
I want to start this like “You don’t have to be blood to be family” youth rec thing. you know, a place where kids who really don’t have anyone else or anywhere else to go can go to and there could be shows there every night, in an intimate setting with people who have gone through the same thing as them. a place where everyone in it is a family; all that eachother has. kind of like a place where kids can channel all their negative energy into positive energy. and they would be all around, not just in certain cities/towns. also, it would of course be a drug free zone:) what i’m doing to make it happen? as a kid i can’t really do much for this dream, but as set it straight says “if we want to see a better day, we’ll find a way!”
i also want to go to a hatebreed concert!!!!! psssh who doesn’t????
Ah….you want to know what MY opinion is? You are talking to a 55 yr old woman that is with her kids 24/7 and a lot of other kids for that matter, housing bands that I get to meet along the way…watching them succeed in THEIR dreams, starting 3 business’ with my kids and not making a damn dime..(yet), traveling the States and Costa Rica(with bands)and watching amazing bands play, sweating my ass off on Warped Tour since 2003 and promoting BandMomma and my daughters new business Backstage Sirens from Florida to California…meeting some of the most incredible talented and amazing people in my life!!!! And you want to know what I think??? I’ll tell you…I worked in an office for 30 years and was so miserable I wanted to just shoot myself!!! You might as well put ME in that orange suit! Granted I learned a lot and met some great people, but, I’ve never ONCE wanted to go back to that!!! NEVER!!! I am finally living my dream!! And, I am letting my kids live theirs!!! Yeah…I’m still helping support them and yeah they still live with me…I should be looking forward to them moving out! But, if they did…I’d be hollow! I guess I worked all of that time to figure out that life is too short, it was my turn to take control. And I don’t want my kids to live like that…so I am still working..just to have them not make the same miserable mistakes I made…of being confined in 4 walls and for them to do what they love!
And when I go to my reunions? I am the one that is fricken happy! I am the one that is still young…I am the one that is rich in life! And what’s wrong with cheap beer and hondas? A smile and a happy heart is worth more than their greenbacks!!!!
Don’t change YOU for them! YOU are #1 and trust me, they are all secretly jealous!!!!
Justin? You and I are living our dreams!!!