The Valley

At any point in our life, we are in one of two places. The mountaintop or the valley. The mountaintop is beautiful. It’s usually the satisfaction from all of your hard work to get a job, achieve a goal, or accomplish a big task. 

The valley, on the other hand, is the chasm we travel through from one mountain to the next. It is shadowy and sometimes bleak. The day-in-day-out of hard work. Many times we can lose sight of the big picture. We can’t get a sense of how far we’ve come, or how much more we have to go. It’s a tough place.

I made a decision to climb a mountain a few years back. I looked at it from a distance and it was beautiful. I just had to get up there and see it for myself, so I decided to build a world-class studio and be a world-class producer, all while not living in a big music city. I know, I know, that’s a big mountain. That leads me to one of the many things I’ve realized on this journey so far—it takes twice as long as you’d think. By this point, I thought I’d be sipping coffee on the mountaintop, watching the fog roll in. And honestly, I’m not sure I’m halfway through my climb. It’s tough out here and many times pretty grim. The light occasionally bursts through and warms your face, but it’s mostly wet socks, tiredness, and fighting off the beasts that live here. 

These beasts can be external. Your competition. People who’d just rather not see you succeed because they were too scared to try it themselves. Sometimes it can be well-meaning family and friends who want you to make good, safe decisions. But mostly, you become the toughest beast you wrestle with. 

You become the beast because of the questions you ask while you’re in the valley. You don’t ask the same kind of questions on the mountain top. But, you ask the big questions in the valley. Like, am I really doing the best thing I can with my short time on this earth? If I only have time to climb 3 or 4 mountains in my life, is this really the one I need to climb? Is this really gonna be worth it in 10 years? In a sense, these are great questions to ask, because they make you go back to your why. To the real reason you’re doing what you’re doing. 

Today, for me, that answer is still yes. Yes, it’s worth it. Yes, I’m on the right path. That’s why I woke up this morning and am sitting here typing this. It’s why I’m making a decision today to stay the course, to keep climbing. Maybe for you, it means calling five more venues who are probably not going to respond. Or playing one more tour that may cost more than it makes. When you know this is what you’re supposed to do, then you’ve got to put your head down and keep going. What else are you going to do? 

Here’s the oddest thing I’m starting to notice about the climb, or even the valley. When you go through it enough times, it becomes part of the joy. That dark place becomes something you look forward to. You wake up, pack your bag for the day, eat your breakfast and get ready for the fight. It’s part of the process of winning, and it makes the mountaintop so much sweeter when you arrive. So much more of a reward. 

Here’s the real interesting part though. When I summit this mountain and look at the view, I’m positive I’ll notice the next mountain, while vastly more beautiful, is a lot steeper and more treacherous. But that’s OK because I’ve had my current climb to help me build my muscles, perseverance, and determination, so I’ll be ready. As much as I want to think that the struggle I’m in now is going to get easier, I know that it’s actually a practice. A rehearsal.

But maybe you’ve read this far and you’re having a hard time relating to what I’m saying. This all seems foreign, or like an old memory you can relate to, but you don’t really feel what I’m writing about. It may be because you’ve built a nice little comfortable cabin on a mountaintop you climbed a few years back. Friend, wake up. Our lives aren’t meant to be lived on the mountaintop. Pack your damn bag. There’s another mountain for you to climb today. Let’s go.