For those of you that follow me on any social media at all, you may have noticed that I’ve been road tripping across America with my best friend which has been super fucking awesome. If you’ve never done it, you need to. It’s such a cool experience and I’ve met so many dope ass people it’s unreal. So while we were in Vegas, after crashing at a friend’s I woke up and rolled into the living room where they were watching Judd Apatow's new series, Love. Almost immediately after sitting down, one of the characters had a quote that really struck me.
“You can’t see life as the enemy. Life is a choice."
It really resonated with me because even though it’s something I’ve bought into, I really loved how he said it. It made me think about our trip across the country and all the messages we’ve received from people along the way. From people admitting to living vicariously through us through our pictures to wondering if we got arrested somewhere in the southwest when there was a day we didn’t get around to posting anything (we didn’t… yet). Probably the most resounding comment Jordan and I have been receiving, however, is people saying that they’re jealous and wish they could go on a trip like this. Our response to them has been quite simple: so just fucking do it.
This trip was birthed out of a season of frustration for the two of us where we constantly had excuses for why we didn’t have time for trips and things we kept saying we wanted to do and experience. Allow me to assure you, that was bullshit. We had just done a piss poor job of prioritizing our lives and became complacent in being workaholics. So we finally said fuck that and picked a date on the calendar and here we are. Incredible would be a grave understatement to try and describe our experience. In less than 14 days we have:
- been in 16 states
- taken 4 flights
- travelled 6,000+ miles
- roughly 100 hours in the car
- saw the blue hole in New Mexico
- experienced the petrified forest in Arizona (strongly recommend this one)
- received 1 speeding ticket (Jordan)
- received 1 warning speeding ticket (Vance)
- spoken at a conference
- tasted more wines than I can count
- had some game-changing culinary experiences
- had 2 outdoor showers
- explored caves on the beach in Malibu
- went from singing in an LA Fitness hot tub to banging out a track with The Fleet in 2 days
- made some truly remarkable friends
- found the Chip of Destiny
The list goes on. It was legitimately a life changing experience. Far more importantly, it brings me to an important question:
What’s it gonna take?
What’s it gonna actually take to make a change in your lifestyle?
Tragedy?
Heartbreak?
Losing everything?
How much frustration?
Stop watching other people experience dope shit while you stare through your phone and think, “Fuck, I should totally do that one day.” Fuck “one day”. Eliminate that shit from your vocabulary. I don’t say this lightly when I tell you it literally breaks my heart every single time someone has a conversation with me about how they wish they were doing something different in their life and make excuse after excuse after motherfucking excuse as to why they can’t make it happen.
Believe me, when I tell you I know it doesn’t happen overnight. I’ve spent 12 years trying to “live the dream." I understand that people have responsibilities and families which should never be taken lightly. However, you get to make a choice every day. You get to choose what you do with the hours in your day. Are those choices getting you closer to a life that you’re actually stoked about or are you making choices that keep you dredging on the same old shit you can’t stand? I beg you to pick the former.
xoxo
Vance
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