The Wider Path

     My ideal future would be having a job as touring musician and getting to see the world. I'd really like to live in Canada. I'd love to have a nice girl, no children, and make just enough money to live comfortably, I don't need a lot of money to be happy. I'd like to be in a city, but a smaller one. I like having places to go to and things to do. I love living near a store.
     So here's a hypothetical plot twist. One day I'm on my way to the store, I really want to buy some Trix Yogurt, it's a nice sunny day, the birds are singing, children are playing, Dragonforce is blaring through my headphones when all of a sudden I get hit by an ice cream truck.... darn song distracted me as I crossed the street. I go into a coma for 2 whole years. When I wake up I have no memory on how to play the guitar nor do I have a desire to relearn.
     In this alternate timeline I end up getting really good at making breakfast food. So I open up a Breakfast place. I continue living somewhere in the Boston area. Settle down and have just one kid. Live a quiet and opposite life to the other timeline. Eventually my breakfast place becomes a huge chain even bigger than McDonalds ... well maybe not .... but I do open a 2nd place and to me it feels like being as big as McDonalds.




The Universe works in strange ways
Pushing everyone through their stories
Guides them through their destiny
Time after Time
Many opportunities open for me
Many times money is scarce
But the void is filled with joy
And experience
A great mentor gives me the opportunity
To grow and learn
Always surrounded by like minded others
Opportunities for real work may be low
But opportunities for the dream are high
Take them
Listen to the universe
Life is short
The Universe may be hard to understand
But I'll prevail if I possibly can

Vision Board

The reason I chose these images is because they all relate to my future. I posted a lot of pictures of me playing live and some of my heroes playing live. Because in the future I want to be a touring musician. The places I put in there are pictures of Canada and Japan because I am fascinated by Japanese culture and I went to Canada once as a kid and thought it was such a cool place, I really want to go back. I also threw in some inspirational quotes by Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters and Nirvana and a quote by Steve Jobs talking about following your dreams.


Looking into the future
I see
Many Places
Many Faces
Being on the road
It feels so right
The Music
The Energy
Extreme Happiness

Passion

     The thing in life I am most passionate about is music. Ever since I was a little kid I always thought being in a band and making my own songs sounded like the coolest thing in the world. When I was 10 I started playing guitar. By 13 I had started my first band and began playing gigs and going and making recordings at studios. I would absolutely love to be a touring/recording musician for the rest og my life and I'm gonna try my hardest to do that.
     I can easily make a career out of my passion. If I don't play out or record I can always help record other people or teach. Right now I'm currently interning at BMR Music in Malden. As of now I usually take a lesson for an hour and then help out around the shop for a while afterwards. Pretty soon though I'm going to start teaching. I have made some good connections from playing around New England and sometimes I make decent money from the gigs, I'm hoping to put together a small tour sometime soon, I'm friends with some bands who have done it before so I'm sure they can help.
     As for the type of people to market this towards it would just be fans of music, for now mainly fans of Power Metal, but in the future I'm sure I'll do some other things. As for causes I'd work with I guess that would be benefit shows, which I actually have done before. I've done a few shows to benefit the homeless and one to benefit cancer patients I believe .. it was a while ago so I don't remember if it was cancer or for some other disease. I think my work could greatly benefit a lot of people. I write very uplifting music so it could be good to help keep peoples spirits up in a dark time, I know music has helped me get through any I've ever had.




Music speaks to the spirit
Every note has a word to it
Every melody an emotion
It helps light the path
To my journey
When times get tough
It helps me hold on
And leave the past behind
The dark clouds fade instantly
No pain lasts forever
It's tough work
But leads to many adventures
It's a chase to create the ultimate riff
The catchiest melody
The fastest solo
To make people move
To hear the cheer at the final note
So far away seems the day
But determination leads to glory
To rise above the universe

Being Grateful

     There are so many things in life that I take for granted and don't realize it. As bad as it sounds I guess a lot of times it is people. I don't realize how much I love certain people until they're gone. Especially friends, so many friends of mine have come and gone and I wish I cherished our time together more than I did.
    At the same time I am grateful for all those who are or have been in my life, whether it be friends, a girlfriend, or family. Even though I can take them for granted I have learned to be grateful for those who care about me and I care for. I am grateful for all the experiences I've had, especially in my musical journey. I feel very lucky every day.
   One thing I love to take in and absorb are places. Whenever I go to a new and unfamiliar place I love just taking my time there and exploring. I even like doing that with old places in hopes of finding something new or refinding what made the place special in the first places.

Always cherish friends
They keep things bright when it's dim
Learn to enjoy them

The sun keeps life warm
Keeps all the creatures happy
Bring life to the dark

Music speaks to us
Even sometimes without words
It uplifts our paths

Food may seem plentiful
You must always cherish it
For it could vanish

Health is what you are
Sickness could always take over
Always watch yourself

Fears and Obstacles

   Just like everyone else I have my fears and obstacles. I do what I can to get past them, but they are still there. I believe everyone has the ability to overcome fear as long as they put in the effort and face it. Nothing should be able to scare you enough to not pursue happiness in life.
   I honestly fear change. I'm the kind of person that tends to find my comfort zone and stay there. But in life I want to be a touring musician so I have to get past my fear of change since I desire to travel and see new things. I think as long as I have good people by my side it will comfort me while traveling. I also fear failure. I know everyone does, but it is still a fear of mine. This connects a lot to the comfort zone thing, sometimes it prevents me from trying new things or sometimes doing things I know I'm good at in front of people, as I can get scared they won't think I'm good. It's something I can move past, I understand in life that in the wise words of Shia Labeouf sometimes you just gotta "DO IT"
   I do have many irrational fears too. Like the dark. It sounds so dumb, but it is a fear of mine and I used to have a lot of trouble sleeping as a kid because of it. I also had a fear of ghosts and as a kid when it was dark in my room at night my young mind would imagine all sorts of things, I would have myself convinced I saw something or that I wasn't alone. I did get over that fear as I got older, but to do that I just had to face it, I would force myself to sleep in the dark until eventually I got more comfortable. I also one time went ghost hunting which helped me face my fear of ghosts.

Blessing In Disguise

      So one thing in my life that was a really bad situation that turned out to be a blessing in disguise was the breakup of my first serious band NightSlasher. Basically what happened was everyone slowly but surely became unmotivated and lost interest. After 5 years of hard work we really weren't getting anywhere, many of the members became unreliable and started focusing on life outside of the band, which is perfectly okay, but at the time it really sucked. The straw that broke the camels back was when we had to cancel our studio sessions to make our first real album, that was kinda the only thing that was keeping everyone in the band was the hope that our album would happen, but unfortunately the plans fell through. So most of us went our separate ways me and a couple of the others started a new band.
     At first when it happened I was actually kinda happy, but once we made the announcement on our facebook page and a lot of our fans got pretty upset, I actually started to get really sad. I thought I might've made a huge mistake and messed up what could've ended up being a really good thing. Starting the new band was extremely slow and tedious as well and for a while I didn't know if going through the process of finding all new people and making all new songs would be worth it, I knew eventually that's what I would have to do, but I started to think about taking time off from music.
    I didn't though. Because once the new band actually came together it breathed new life into me.  Now I realize that breaking up the old band was the best decision I could've made. This new one is working out so well and I honestly feel we're 10000x better than the old one. We have better songs and just better and nicer and more dedicated people. I'm much happier now than I ever was with the old band.



Psychological Alchemy
An entrance to the mind
What lies beneath?
What don't we know
That in reality
Deep down we do know

It is a key
To unlock the door to the mind
And unlock the door to our minds mind
Find the hidden passageways inside
Show us who we really are

What drives us
Why we do what we do
Why we are who we are
All the questions have answers
All we have to do is look
At ourselves

Experience

     So I'm going to discuss some events in my life that have set the course for what I want to do with myself. I really haven't had to many bad experiences, so these will mostly be good things.

     The first event was playing my first gig. This was back in Dec of 2012 and I was 15 at the time. The gig was at RGs Pub in Haverhill, MA it was a crappy little bar, but for some reason it was packed with people wanting to see us and the other bands, it was a bout 60 or so people, which doesn't seem like a lot but for my first show that seemed like a million ... especially in such a tiny place. I had been playing in a band called NightSlasher for about 2 years at this point and we had worked extremely hard up to this point, then one day our new Bass player asked us about playing our 1st show, he had heard through a friend that a lady was putting something together and still needed a couple more bands so we got on that. It was just a great night, seeing all those people rocking out to the songs that I made was so cool and it just made me realize more than ever that I wanted to play music for the rest of my life. I wasn't really nervous going into it either, I was very prepared and everything felt so natural, my stage presence was so so, but that has improved greatly over the years.

     Another good experience I had was working my first job at Everett City Hall. It was a summer job that I did the past 3 summers and I really enjoyed it. I just did all sorts of odd jobs, whether it be sorting papers, moving boxes, archiving stuff, or making trips to Dunkin Donuts for the office. It was usually pretty easy, there were definitely some tough days where I did some tedious stuff, but my grandfather and one of my best friends also worked there, so it wasn't usually that bad, I learned a lot about responsibility and it helped set me up for getting  more real job at some ... soon hopefully.

     Another cool experience was when I went ghost hunting in the haunted woods. Now this didn't really shape my future or anything, but as a kid I always had an irrational dear of ghosts and the dark for absolutely no reason, it got better over the years, but even as a teen I was still scared. So last year me and all my friends decided to go to Maudslay State Park .. I don't remember where it's located but it seemed like the middle of nowhere. So we all had flashlights and a gps satellite so we wouldn't get lost ... and we even brought a sword. It was very freaky ... nothing paranormal happened, it was definitely very eerie though, it just felt strange. It was unbelievably dark and it was the middle of the night, if we looked behind us where the flashlights weren't shining it was absolute darkness, I have never seen darkness like that. We found all sorts of weird things, like a pet cemetery and an old run down garden and an area in the middle that was completely open for quite a distance  (I guess a house used to be there and it burned down a while ago) so eventually we got lost even though we had the satellite we kept running into dead ends and eventually all of our flashlights died except 2 (we initially had 6) and then the satellite started to die, but luckily we found the exit before that happened (it had less than 10% battery left) so even though the night was really scary it helped me realize that I probably won't have a night as scary as that again so I guess the thought of that and the fact that I faced my fears and came out just fine it helped me get rid of those fears. NOW I CAN SLEEP WITH THE LIGHTS OFF