What is a Good Problem?
i remember back in the day i used to get bummed. i used to get real bummed about real things. everyday things that everyday people deal with like girls breaking up with me, people making fun of me, bands breaking up, losing a job ect. i would beat myself up over everything like that to the point of not even wanting to leave my rents house.
man, i remember a few years back a girl i had been dating for 2 years broke up with me the day after my 21st birthday (granted i woke up the next morning naked in my own vomit in bed with a birthday hat on and a million text messages and phone calls so i probably deserved it) and i was completely devastated. this was right around the time sing it loud was recording “come around” and right before we went on tour with we the kings the cab and valencia (which was the first tour i ever did that people actually went to the shows). the most exciting breath taking time in my life at that point was not exciting at all for me because of how i dealt with what was going on in my personal life and now i can’t ever get that time back.
a lot of people know that i’m more positive than most and don’t trip on little things and ask my how i keep my chin up all the time and the answer is simply “i’ve been through it all.” i have not always been how i am now. i know other people are going through these things too, everyone does. i’ve dealt with it all different ways. i’ve cried like a baby over things when i was younger, i’ve gotten upset, angry and acted immature about things, i’ve tried being mean and bitter to people, i’ve tried to cover up feelings by using drugs and extreme amounts of alcohol and none of that shit works. it’s just understanding that your problem today, depending on how you look at it and deal with it, could be a blessing in disguise in the future and whatever “bad thing” is happening to you could end up leading to the most positive experience you’ve ever had.
i remember when my first band, the semester, broke up. i thought my life was over. it was so hard for me to recover from that because that band was my baby and everyone knew it. it took my friend kieren smith scraping me off the ground and convincing me to join a band with him (sing it loud) to get me out of that funk (thanks dude!). i didn’t have a job, i lost my license, i had no band, i had no money, i was smoking too much weed and i would lay in my mom’s driveway for hours at night and smoke an entire pack of cigarettes in an hour because i was so stressed. i dealt with it like an idiot and it only ended up hurting more. but i took the chance starting that new band with kieren and we made something awesome with it and it ended up being the best experience of my life and theirs thus far and was 50 times what i was doing before. i have a lot of friends that have given up on their dreams because they felt defeated and believe me, they’re bummed and that could have been me if i wouldn’t have pulled through.
now i face another difficult patch in life because a few months ago sing it loud broke up and i went through another rough relationship break up. now, am i going to be a bitch about it and cry? drink myself into oblivion? be a dick to people? talk bad about people to make myself seem bigger than they are? no way, because i’ve done all of that before and it just doesn’t work. i’m going to figure it out and come out on top. the minute you start to feel sorry for yourself is the minute you start failing at what you are trying to accomplish. i have a healthy mind and i can conquer anything. i’ve already proven that to myself.
the fact is that there is so much music to be written performed and heard, so many awesome girls/guys in this world that you haven’t met yet, or maybe you have ;), so many jobs you could have, so so many awesome things you can experience in your life but the one thing you don’t have is time. don’t spend what you have left being bitter, sad, upset or feeling conquered. i’m terrible at writing blogs because i have no concept of paragraphs, spelling, punctuation or what words to capitalize, but my point of this ramble is that everything i thought was a terrible problem that I WAS HAVING in my life has always turned in my mind, sooner or later, into a good problem THAT I ONCE HAD and just didn’t know it yet. and these problems have always eventually lead me to a more successful band, a better group of friends and a more stunningly awesome girl that i get to spend my time with. the rough patch i just went through is already leading me to some of those things. think about that the next time you’re going through a hard time because you can live like that too. i promise you. life does get tough and it does take hard work to get over things but we can all accomplish that and come out on top of the world.
