Anyone who knows me knows that I am a type-A individual. I dream big dreams and I have an extremely hard time letting go of them. Over the last few weeks, I’ve had some time to think about my dreams – my goals – and to really contemplate the feasibility of living out those dreams. For those of you who haven’t heard, I’ll lay it out, plain and simple:
My dream is to perform, record, and write music for a living.
This is the same goal that I have had since my 18th birthday, with a few, very minor changes in it’s wording.
In thinking about this singular goal, my mind eagerly makes connections with the reality in which I now live: How am I living out this dream now, how can I in the near- and long-term future, and how can I take steps now toward reaching that dream?
Well it seems now that the time is right for another, slight modification of this goal. I think that the phrase “for a living” implies that music is the only thing that I “do” to make money. I think part of the appeal of my goal has always been the prospect of working for myself, and maybe that’s more of the sense of what I mean. Maybe I should drop “for a living” altogether.
There are, of course, a million ways to earn a buck, and maybe I have what it takes to build a business or two that I can oversee, but don’t run on a day-to-day level: a guitar lessons business, property rental and management, or even something more philanthropic: think a local lawn care business managed and operated as a part of a business class at the high school down the street…
So maybe my dream has gotten a little bit simpler this year:
To write, perform, and record music.