Isn’t waiting when you’re ready one of the most frustrating things ever? “Hurry up and wait” is a very familiar cliché in the music industry. Well, from years of touring and recording, I can say that it’s one of those clichés that’s based on some truth. When you are so focused and ready to do something that inactivity fills you with anxiety and fucks up your mood, then you can’t take advantage of everything you could be spending that extra energy on. There is enough to do in life that you could fill your time with productive, useful, and engaging things rather than sitting around rotting.

Say you are on tour and are just sitting around backstage waiting for show time. You’re bored. You’re sick of the internet, there’s nowhere to go, and you can’t think of anything to do. What are your options? Obviously the true answer to that is impossible to write down because it’s infinite, but I think that you can break it down to two simple things: Constructive and deconstructive uses of your time.

Most people I know fill that gap with drugs, alcohol, video games, anxiety, and random sex. While there’s a time and place for all those things (with the exception of anxiety), if they are used to fill a hole rather than enhance what’s whole, it’s a bad, BAD road to take. They will lead to anxiety and pain eventually. A month straight of this will leaves you feeling empty. A month straight of this eight times a year LEAVES you empty.

A few people I’ve known have chosen to use that time to further themselves. To this day, those people I’m thinking of have consistently moved forward in in their lives and their careers. So the next time you are in one of those potentially frustrating situations, ask yourself what you can do with that window of time that can really help you get to the next step in life. Whatever it may be. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have hours on end to work. You might only have thirty minutes to spare. But the time you spend producing rather than complaining or fucking around will ultimately benefit you in both the short and long term. Because another cliché that’s actually true: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Thirty minutes here, an hour there, and so on and so forth over months and years turns into something.

Think about it. Then let me know what’s on your mind, please. If any of you have any strategies that pertain to this I’d love to hear them.

-EL

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