Dear Me.

Man over the past 3 months I have 12 different drafts that I haven’t push through. Man, had no idea just how many of these I quit on. This is #13 and hopefully by the end of it, you’ll walk away with something valuable.

I grew up on hip hop. Back when 11 year old me was trying to take in Eminem on ‘Sing for the Moment’ all the way to today as I’m banging out Rockie Fresh and Macklemore’s new shit over speakers. Its been a minute.

The thing that drew me to hip hop was the fact that these rappers and singers weren’t afraid to touch topics no one else was willing to. Poverty, check. Ghettos, check. Drugs, check, check, and check.

That said, I grew up in an unfortunate generation where rappers like D4L, Dem Franchize Boyz, DJ Unk, and can’t forget Soulja Boy, kind of took hip hop into the mainstream with their dance-friendly tracks. All the while it made guys like Em, Nas, Kanye, and Jay seem much more amazing every time something new dropped because they were still preaching about life, not trying to get the club hyped.

Shout out to dudes like J. Cole, Big Sean, Drake, Wale, and Logic for all they do now. Man kids these guys got so much better ish to listen to its crazy.

But I digress. The reason I wanted to bring up hip hop was because I wanted to talk about success.

This ain’t anything new. One of my first posts on here was related to just that. But I’m sitting here — 12 drafts in — and I think that’s really what I want to talk about. So indulge me for a minute here.

In songs like Love Yourz, Need to Know, The Pessimist, When I’m Gone, and Cherry Wine (all great songs by the way), you’ll hear rappers talk about what effect ‘success’ has had on their lives and how they feel about it.

It’s not the greatest picture. People fronting rappers thinking that they’re making bank, people criticizing them because they’re not apart of their kids’ lives, and in some cases, the rappers themselves reminiscing about when they were broke and shit on the way up.

And it makes me wonder, ‘is success all that it’s made out to be?’

Will I become one of these repetitive ass rappers trying to tell people life was better when I was broke? Will I even be anywhere near ‘successful?’

Man if 10 year old me heard that 23 year old me ain’t even make the NBA yet (and has no shot at it), he’d be in tears, man.

If 20 year old me heard that I quit grad school, he’d be trying to get in my face smdh hahaha.

What I want to say is that ‘success’ is always subjective. One minute you feel like your on top of the world, two weeks later that accomplishment ain’t mean shit. Life changes quick.

But nevertheless we chase it.

We chase after those incremental highs. Giving it every fucking thing you have just to hit that next place we designate as a milestone.

It’s like when you open a door to get somewhere. If the door doesn’t have windows, you have no idea what’s behind it. You just know you have to go through it to get to where you need to.

Ever think about how crazy that is? People don’t even talk to strangers on the street ’cause they think they onto some schemin’ shit. But we’re completely down to open doors where we don’t know what’s on the other side. We just do it because we prioritize our need to progress.

Progress(?)

Lately I’ve been feeling like I need to be more cautious. That recklessly chasing highs and opening doors hasn’t been a good look; I feel like I’ve been going to these checkpoints and labeling them milestones after the fact, like I didn’t ever plan for this shit at all haha. Real talk, it took me all those drafts over 3 months just to realize this about myself. Crazy.

But what can you do?

If you don’t progress, you rot. Sometimes we reminisce about old times, think about all the memories and shit, in the end it helps bring the present into perspective. But if you sit there going over the same thing over and over, trying to get things back to what they were, you’re just wasting time.

So you have to solider on. ‘What if back then’ and ‘remember when’ don’t pay bills.

Between us, this is where I’m at. Don’t get it twisted, I’m still chasing that next high. Except now I just want some structure in my life. You know, just getting to a place where I feel like 23 year old me won’t be bitching at 30 year old me about what he did and where he is.

I’m gonna leave you with this. I’ve got the song, a Kirin, and some chips. Its a gonna be good time.

P.S. I’m sorry 10 year old me. I’ll make it up to you one day.