Member-only story
A Message to My Younger Self about Success
I see it all the time. The efforts that people expel in order to get what they think will make them happy. It’s ludicrous when you look at it from a distance but perfectly reasonable and normal when up close.
I don’t know exactly when it sunk in for me that doing isn’t as effective as what you are being, but it did and it’s made all the difference. You understand that whatever success you get is not given to you. It is a by-product of who you are.
Take the late Lil Peep for example. He and other “soft boi” rappers are the contemporary versions of what nu-metal bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit were in the late 90s. He isn’t heavy and in-your-face like those bands are, but he’s emotional. The reason people gravitated towards him was because he was expressing what a lot of people were feeling inside — shame and sadness. Nu-metal bands expressed anger and suffering and people flocked to their shows and bought their albums in the millions.
While there are a number of people who label these types of acts as melodramatic, the reason they are successful is because they were just being themselves. They sang or rapped what was on their hearts. Their authenticity shone through and obliterated the materialistic bling rap and glam metal that preceded them. Not everyone is going to like you, and that’s a good thing. It means you stand…
