An open letter to anyone who doubted why I live such a "crazy busy" life

The more I think about my life, the more I realize how not normal it is.

But actually. It’s an awesome thing, and a troubling thing all at once. Let me put in context for you:

I travel by plane more often than I drive a car.

I have an apartment, but I see a different hotel room more often than I see my own bed.

I wake up at 5/6am to do work for a record label in London and a rising DJ duo in Sweden, to be on their time zone. Then I put on a business suit, and go to my day job, where I’m assisting in a $2bn divestiture for one of the largest telecom companies in the world. When I get home about 12 hours later, I sit back at my laptop to work on this site with Tabitha, in Vancouver.

Many of my closest friends don’t actually share the same zip code as me. Or the same state…or country. Or continent.

In fact, I cringe when people ask the assumedly simple question of “Where do you live/where are you from” because it ends up being a two minute monologue of explanations.

I recognize I’m (not so slowly) ruining my body with all the travel and accompanying stress, part of which I bring on myself. For example—in three weeks I went between Dallas, Seattle, Vancouver and Miami—you could literally not find two points farther apart in North America unless I went to Alaska.

When I talk about my life, I get one of two reactions: exclamations of how cool my life must be, or expressions of concern. The latter often comes from family and friends who know me well enough to hint at when I’m starting to burn the candle at both ends as well as in the middle. I wrote the book on over-extending myself, and despite the inevitable fatigue, I keep writing sequels.

Why? Because despite all the craziness of pouring myself into additional work on top of my day job, and juggling as many as five time zones in a given week (or day!), I wouldn't have it any other way. It is a deeply embedded part of my pyschosis to do as much as I can in the time I am given to push myself towards my personal definition of success.

Sure, there are moments I wish my life had a little more regularity. I go grocery shopping and get excited at the novelty of it. Cooking for myself is a fucking blessed event because I get so tired of eating only at restaurants. Sometimes I wish I stayed in one place for more than 3-4 days so I could do normal things like happy hour with friends, or actually maintain a relationship. I say "maintain" because starting isn't neccessarily the hard part...it's finding someone who can understand the fact that I'm always on the go.

In many ways, I live the life of a DJ, even though I'm not one. Maybe one day that'll make me a great mangager, because I can already sympathize with living on the road.

I can bet you one thing- a lot of those DJs will complain about how hard it is (and it can be!) but most would never trade it for a thing, or for a "normal" life.

I'm sure one day I'll settle down...I think. But that day is far from now. I've got big dreams, and they're not turning into reality by themselves.

Because the only way you live an extraordinary life is by doing something beyond the ordinary.

P.S. This post was mostly written as a string of long texts to Tabitha, after I landed from yet another a four hour flight and found myself questioning life. This girl is like inspiration when she's not even trying

#travel #work #edm #success #extraordinary