True Freedom

"Poverty breeds lack of self-reliance." - Daniel Deleon

Truer words were never spoken. The last few years of my life, while I have been pursuing this music career, I have become someone else. Someone my mother never raised me to be. Someone that relies entirely too much upon the words/actions of others. It seems, for the sake of the dream, I have sacrificed much of my soul. I know it may seem like hyperbole, but I woke up this morning, wondering "How did I get here?" Most who knew me "pre-industry" would have never predicted the circumstances I have currently found myself in. Everything in my soul is telling me this isn't how I'm supposed to be living. God didn't bring me through all he did for me to utilize/not utilize my gifts like this. I act like I'm okay with the sacrifices I'm making. Outwardly, I appear to understand this is the way it must be done in order to break through. My heart doesn't believe that. And I think it's beginning to show to my peers. For some time, I have tried to brush this feeling off as a momentary rush of frustration, but I know it runs much deeper. I've always wanted to be the 2 things things that my father wasn't. A man of his word and a self-sufficient person. In this venture in the music industry, I have gone very far off of that path. A man can provide for himself and his family if he has one. By my own standards, I am not a man. That is unacceptable. I am more. I will be more.

"Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own person is its ultimate reward." - Patricia Sampson

Amen.