Fasten Your Freaking Seatbelt!!!

Sometimes life just SUCKS! You know when you were that little kid explaining to your parents that you wanted to be an artist someday? A lot of times parents or (insert whomever) will respond with,"You know it's a lot of hard work and statistically your odds of making it are slim to none." But no one ever explains what that hard work equates. I know every time I heard that phrase I instantly thought "I will need lots of money/time/& patience to survive." I always thought success would be a product of how hard I worked. WRONG!!!! No one ever took the time to explain that I would be in an ongoing, uphill battle for the rest of my life. That taking one huge leap of success would mean also taking three steps backwards.

Some of you will read this out of curiosity, some out of boredom, and a few of you will read this hoping I will shed some sort of nugget of wisdom to help guide you along your path to being a successful artist. To those few, here is my advice..... FASTEN YOUR FREAKING SEATBELT!!! Life is rotten, and things never go according to plan. Sure, through-out your journey you will have moments of joy, happiness, love, excitement, but overall it's one hurdle to get over after the other. Prepare yourself, it's not all what it's cracked up to be and most of the time you will ask yourself "Why am I doing this again?" I know I'm being Negative Nancy, but I promise it's for your own good. I want to warn you young-ins out there...... You can't become #1 over night. There are tons of things I could mention to help prepare you around that topic, but I want to focus on only one for this post.

Life gets in the way and things fall apart more often than not. What you need to ask yourself is..."Is my dream really worth the fight?" I have been with Estoria for almost 2 years now, and we have taken one fiery bullet after the other and somehow we manage to keep pulling through. We have walked through several deaths, unemployment, cancer, abandonment, depression, anxiety, anger, fatigue, PTSD, Cystic Fibrosis, grief...... And it has all come in waves of various forms. Each wave hitting harder than the last. I think collectively as a band,we have thought more about giving up then we have thought about succeeding. It's hard, it's tiring,& at the end of the day your left with one question...... "What am I doing this for?" See for Estoria, we have an answer to that question. We want to make a difference. We want to be the change that this world needs. We want to be a light in the darkest of places, we want to be a role-model for those who don't have one. We want our music to inspire, motivate, and captivate your hearts. We want our music to start a fire in your souls & to ignite a change in this world. We want to make an impact. But for every heartfelt pursuit of this mission we have experienced an opposition.

Bottom-line, it's okay to have ambition. However, it is a set up for failure to walk into the process not fully grasping "how hard" it's gonna be. My advice, ask yourself first and foremost "WHY?". "Why do I want to pursue this dream?" If your answer is for something outside of yourself, or if it consists of answers that aren't shallow, you will have a much better chance at surviving the storms in the future. Do your research, and do like scripture talks about in Luke... "Count the cost." Just remember to fasten your seat belt and prepare for the Best/worst rollercoaster of your life. :)

-Meagan