2018, The Year I Learned To Love Fear
The Unknown
No matter what industry you are in, we all face that feeling in the pit of our stomach whenever we hit a wall of uncertainty. It could be in our personal or professional lives. This feeling could be the result of a million different things but in the end, it can eat away at our productivity and happiness. It can be scary because we don’t know the future and we don’t have a “process” to follow. It’s just us talking to a peer or mentor and basically getting a best guess from them. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t make any decisions without going to 3 of the people in my inner circle. They know my goals and what is best for me. It wasn’t always like this though. I used to not have that network, it was just me and my thoughts and an anxiety attack usually resulted from this.
Reaching Out
Starting in my teenage years I thought I could do it all. Invincibility was my in my soul. I didn’t think I needed anyone and I could do everything on my own. This wasn’t until an event happened in high school 3 months before graduating that messed me up. I didn’t have a network of people to reach out too and I didn’t really know what to do. So I decided to leave Texas and move as far away as I could, to Chicago. This was where I was gonna rebuild and restructure myself. In Chicago, I met some amazing friends I still have and they were the missing pieces I didn’t have before. During 2015-2017 I was finding myself, just like every other person my age. I had toxic relationships and powerful ones. These were the building blocks for my network of people, I just didn’t know that at the time. I’d call my mom upset about not being where I wanted and I wasn’t sure what was holding back my progression. I was having an anxiety attack at least once a month and didn’t know where to turn. It was just as if I was in the backseat a moving car and I didn’t know where we were going.
Finding Your Circle
In late 2017 I wasn’t happy with my work. I was making sub par music videos and didn’t feel like I was around the best influences. I was where I thought I wanted to be, but my work wasn’t. I had this fear of never getting this “break” and just staying stuck in this melting pot of mediocrity. At the end of the year I met a group of creatives who were like any others before. These guys are my frequent collaborators and hold me to a standard of being a great creative and an even better human. After being in this new “circle” I started to see an increase in production quality and myself as a human. I cared more about people and their dreams and goals. I didn’t see someone as a chess piece I could befriend and help me get to where I wanted to be like they were just a robot. I started to build empathy and tried to spread the happiness and positivity I was getting.
This entire time I’d call my mom or my agent and I thought the catalyst was just myself or my work. That may of played a role but it was mainly my circle of peers and friends. I had toxic friendships and I wasn’t treating people the way they should be. This is when that feeling in the bottom of my stomach started to dissipate.
Practice Makes Perfect
This entire year has been the most challenging since I graduated high school and tried to find meaning in my life. It was not only in my personal life but also in my career. I decided I didn’t want to chase a career in music videos anymore, the dream I had since 17. I wanted to tell stories, I wanted to change lives and I really wanted to be a positive impact on EVERYONE. My family, friends, peers. I got the words “trust the process” tatted on my arm. Whenever I feel down and don’t know where I’m getting called to do something and don’t know how to feel I look at that. It sounds corny and cliche but I’ve made it through some hard times that I didn’t think I would. It felt as if sometimes I didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, but I made a light and I found my way out.
It’s not just how you feel about yourself, it’s about how your friends feel about you. You need a pack of people who care about you as much as you do, and just like they are there for you. You need to be there for them. It’s incredible what being around people who hold you up to a standard can do. They are this “light” in a way. They can guide you and help you out of darkness.
Trust the unknown. The pit in your stomach is a positive feeling, It means you care about your future.