Or…
What is in your soul is much more important than what is in your pocket.
2016, numerologically, is a Nine year. What does that mean? It’s the last year of a nine-year cycle. 2+0+1+6 = 9. And with every Nine year cycle there are drastic changes, 2007 being the previous where we saw an airliner disappear, Korea testing nuclear weapons, we watched beheadings on TV… I could go on, but I’m just trying to make a point here. Every Nine Year end cycle has dramatic endings and sets us up for the ‘one’ year cycle and a new beginning.
2016 was a tough year for me. Tough, but liberating. It represents the year of finally breaking the chains of the corporate world and entering the world of the unknown.
A little over a year ago I left my job (Just over broke) as a Graphic Designer with years under my belt in advertising, into pursuing my music career 100%. It took me about 9 years to make this transition, but in the Facebook world it seemed sudden. That seed was planted when I left Florida for Boulder, Colorado. I left a relationship, a house, cars, the comforts of materialism. I started the transition from this phase to getting back to nature. Even though I still had my corporate job, and was still making ads for things I didn’t believe in… I was still propagating materialism and keeping myself in its shackles. I traded the wife, house, cars for a girlfriend, snowboards and bicycles.
But the seed was growing.
The person that propelled this catalyst of thought for change was my boss… Alex Bogusky. He quit advertising and started up his own form of advertising that was conscious. It promoted something far different than what we had been pushing all along. The Universe caught on to my questioning and thought and again pushed me further. First, my sister passing away and making me promise to do my music, and then getting laid off. I’m very stubborn, it seems. Or, I was then. It took a mighty big boot to kick me in the ass, wake me up, and move me forward.
That was 2009. I packed my stuff and moved to Los Angeles to join a band that I had never met. At that point it didn’t seem to matter. Change needed to happen if I was to become what I wanted to become.
Fast forward to 2016…
As I mentioned above I had left my job and entered a world that is completely unstable. A world where I was not going to get a weekly paycheck. A world where I was going to have to hustle to make things happen. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. I am fortunate to have somebody in my life who believes in me. Someone who believes that what is in your soul is much more important than what is in your pocket. Yes, there are times where I freak the fuck out. Times that I’m unstable and miserable. Times where I just want to say fuck it and go back to the comforts of a stable job. I do not take for granted the choice that I have made… and as time goes by there are more and more people around me to support this thought. Thank you.
Tonight I get to sing a few songs at the Hard Rock Cafe before they tear it down. Another ending of a chapter. One of the songs I will be singing means a lot to me. Call it; the closing of another chapter and the beginning of a new one. The song ‘Be Yourself’ by Audioslave could not be more perfect of a song for my closure of this chapter. It lets me know that no matter how scary this year has been, I am being myself… or as I like to say, ‘Be’ing, not ‘do’ing.
So.. in summary, I’d like to say this to you…
Start planting that seed. Watch it grow. It will take cultivating, but don’t ever walk away from it. There will be times where you don’t want to do it. There will be times that you will, in fact, walk away… but all in all… that seed will still be growing. And one day it will be unavoidable and then you will finally say fuck it. You will make it happen. Because, you contributing who you are, is WAY more important than saving up for ‘someday’. Because ‘someday’ might never come.
Happy New Year! Follow your dreams!
David Reed Watson