New song out now! Challenging our false feelings of being “Incomplete” 🎸

Be proud of your identity

Your imperfections make you unique

Embrace your new reality

While being incomplete

I know it is maybe wrong or somewhat narcissistic to quote your own words while doing a write up but I had to start this blog with this verse from my latest single “Incomplete” because it sums up the whole meaning of the song. Listen to it here.

The song essentially talks about the pressure of trying to be perfect in whatever you are trying to do and the anxiety that comes along with it. BUUUUT,and herein lies the moral of the song, it’s OK :). It’s that simple. It is OK to not be perfect. It’s OK to be Incomplete.

Incomplete = Not whole = Not Perfect = Human Being.

We humans are not perfect and we will never be. We can not be the perfect son, daughter,  friend, partner, engineer, doctor, guitarist, singer, painter, etc. We will always make mistakes. We will not be able to please everyone. We cannot have a perfect record. And there will always be someone who is better than us. This is a fact. It is hard to accept it but we have to, and the faster we accept it, the easier it gets.

I have to admit that ‘Incomplete' is somewhat autobiographical. I also have to admit that  sometimes I “fall off the wagon”, if you will, when I'm riding my own journey of life.

I have a tendency to want things to be perfect to the point of “OCDing” about it. I want to be the perfect guitarist, the perfect songwriter, and the perfect singer. I want to be the best at my work. I want to be the best looking. I want to be the best at, well… everything! And what’s worse is that I have such a tendency to obsess about it that I stop enjoying the process and just keep on “fighting with myself “ hoping to attain that unreachable goal: perfection. At times, I would feel like the process of doing anything was an uphill battle and whenever anything was done, I didn’t have that sense of accomplishment or wholeness that you get when you finish something. Everything felt like a chore. Everything felt pointless and unworthy.

I’m not going to lie here and tell you that there was a moment in my life, a moment of clarity if you will, when I saw a mystical sign that appeared in front of me and I felt that I was alone in the world and some invisible hand elevated me and told me in a sweet and gentle voice “It’s oookaaay. Taaaaake it eeeeasy!” Nothing like that happened. I just felt that I wasn’t happy and satisfied in anything I was doing and I was just tired. 

But then I started thinking about all the great work and the great people that passed in history and the legends that we read about or watch documentaries about, living or dead, and about their process of creating their masterpieces. And then I realized something: Most of them didn’t know what the hell they were doing and most of them didn’t realize that at the moment of coming up with their masterpieces, they will be creating something that will influence generations and literally change the world. They were just simply doing what they do, to the best of their abilities, and being there in the moment and living in the moment. 

The Beatles didn’t plan on becoming the biggest band on the planet. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t know that the world would go into a mass hysteria when Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram went offline for 6 hours when he was in his college dorm dreaming of social networking. Vincent Van Gogh died a poor man and I’m sure Shakespeare didn’t think that his work would be taught in schools four centuries after his death.

Another thing that I also realized is that none of these greats were perfect when they started. Metallica’s first record, as much as I love it, sounds like a bunch of teenagers trying to imitate their idols (by their own admittance) and James Hetfield sounded like a cat getting castrated when singing (by his own admittance). William Blake’s first poems were very amateurish. Finally, do you remember how the first generation of smartphones looked? YUK!

Greatness can not be achieved instantly. Any skill needs to be honed and refined to become great and it requires determination and perseverance on our part to reach that.  You can not one day wake up and decide to run a marathon if you haven’t done the required training and if you don’t follow a methodical routine of exercises, sleeping pattern and diet.

This brings me to my last point. Being Incomplete does NOT equal being lazy. 

Laziness or Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins and rightfully so. By being lazy, we are depriving ourselves from realizing our full potential. This is unfair to us and to the world. Imagine if Nikola Tesla was lazy, then we wouldn’t have electricity today. 

I’ve spoken about this matter before, we have a finite time on this earth and I believe that we should use this time to leave our mark on this world by doing what we are meant to do…  Yet we should enjoy the process even if it is imperfect or Incomplete.

I used to think that I shouldn’t do or create anything unless it's perfect, then I realized that if that’s the case, then I would not do or create anything at all!

I mentioned earlier that this song is somewhat about me. Sometimes I still feel anxious about not being perfect and sometimes I still tend to obsess about things. However when this foreboding feeling takes over me,  I take a deep breath and take a step back; and I remind myself that while we should always work hard and, as basketball coaches say, “Always give 100%”. And it’s ok to not be perfect. It’s ok to make mistakes. Enjoy the process and the moment. It’s ok to be Incomplete.

Listen to ‘Incomplete’ here.