Life is a fickle thing. What I think is important one day seems insignificant the next. My entire perspective can change in the blink of an eye. About a month ago I was back home in PA for a friend’s wedding. While catching up with someone I hadn’t seen in a while, I found out that a person I went to high school with got paralyzed in a freak accident over the summer. Now he’s 24 and can’t move anything from his neck down. Last I heard, they’re hoping that he’ll eventually get some feeling back in his upper body.

This has been messing with my head on and off ever since I heard about it, much more than some other odd things that have happened to me recently. I wasn’t close friends with the person, but I knew him. He is a cool guy. And when it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter who you are; nobody deserves something like that. All I can wonder is what is next after an event like that? What would I do if that happened to me?

It’s a completely cliche thing to say, but it really does make you think. I know about 2 people my age from high school who have died in drug-related incidents (one OD and one freak accident), and this has messed with me much more than them. Of course it makes you think about the obvious things like what’s really important in life, your friends and your family, etc. But the main thing that has emerged in my mind is one word: fear.

There’s plenty to be afraid of in the world, especially at those times when life seems like nothing but a series of misfortunes. But letting it get in the way of your goals and your dreams is like giving up before you’ve begun. If I am lucky enough to live a full life, then I have a long stretch of time ahead of me. But already that time seems to be passing faster, and I feel like if I don’t grab life by the balls now I may miss my chance. The fear of failure is a very real one for me. Trying to be a professional musician is no small task. I’ve been surrounded by people who have tried and failed, who are trying in vain, or who have already given up. (I’m also thankfully surrounded by a lot of supportive people, too, and I’d like to acknowledge that.) Every step of progress I make, there are new things to be afraid of. What if we got signed to a label and they don’t even release our album? What if our next album gets released and fails, firmly entrenching us in the path of a dead-end band? Countless questions like these are enough to scare anyone away from such an unsure future.

But not me. I have no choice. I have to do this. It’s the one thing I want more than anything else. It’s more than an obsession. It truly is my life. It’s the only thing I think about. Ok, maybe once in a while I think about girls, food, sports or smart-ass remarks, but that’s about it. If you took music away from me, I might as well be paralyzed. And so it comes full circle.

I don’t know what will happen with my friend from high school. I wish him the best, and I really hope he finds what he needs. Everyone’s looking for something, they just don’t always know what it is. I’m lucky enough to know exactly what I’m looking for. I’m going to use my time to put my all into accomplishing everything I know I’m capable of. Youth is an opportunity, not a disability. You can’t let anything petty get in your way when you never know when it will all be taken away. And if down the road I have crashed, burned, and failed, at least I’ll be able to say that I did it without hesitating or half-assing it, and I’ll probably have piled up a life’s worth of experiences along the way. Like they say at the end of Dazed and Confused, all I want to do is be able to say I did the best I could while I was stuck in this place. In this case, “this place” is earth, life, whatever. All I know is this: there is no room for fear.