I don't really like to tell this story,
because I don't like to be thought of as a victim and I certainly don't want people to treat me differently.
This is something that even my best friends didn't know about until about two weeks ago, and these people have known me for years, yet they didn't know this thing about me.
When I was younger, I went to school and everybody was making fun of me. They would make jokes about me because I talked too loud. Then they would whisper things and I couldn't hear them.
They were picking on me.
I would go home and I just was miserable. and I remember laying on the end of my bed and talking to my mum and I told her “Mum. I don't want to go to school anymore.”
She asked me “why do you want to go to school?” I had to tell her that nobody likes me, I didn't have any friends, and I was so sad to have to do this.
Just imagine telling your mother this. I don't have any friends, nobody likes me and they all make fun of me.
They made fun of me because I talked too loud. It made me feel really separate from everybody.
She took me to a doctor and I can see he's pressing something, but I couldn't hear anything. My mum looked really worried and the doctor said that I'm almost completely deaf that I have a hearing impairment.
He went on to explain how this was going to limit me in life to my mother, with me sitting right there. I had to listen to him talking to my mum while I'm sitting there telling me all the things I won't be able to do.
Then I started having some treatments and a surgery. The surgery helped one ear a lot but it made the other ear really, really worse.
That was a new problem for me because everything was different.
if you want to know how that feels. Imagine one of your ears feels like you're underwater and the other ear feels what I would call normal. It's very disorientating.
And I was a bit upset by this because before I ever went to this doctor, in fact before I ever went to school I didn't have a problem.
I was happy, I didn't know anything. I was just living my life. It was normal for me and now I'm somebody with a hearing impairment and I have all of these limits.
My mom is trying to make me do these new hobbies and I didn't want to. I wanted to play piano and I can tell what she's thinking.
She's thinking yeah but you know maybe music's not for you. She's trying to give me these new hobbies. No. I wanted to do music.
She would never stop me, and I started thinking to myself, “well it's not who i am” This guy's talking to me, and he's telling me i'm limited.
I'm not limited.
I'm the guy that goes through limits all my life.
I'm somebody I love going through obstacles in every area of life.
I don't have an easy life. I picked a weird life being an artist.
All my life I've gone through obstacles. Obstacles it makes a game. I've always liked games with obstacles.
Resistance isn't something to fear or fight. If I didn't have any resistance in the gym I wouldn't build any muscles.
Having that resistance is what makes me stronger.
It means i've got to figure things out it means I've got to improve.
It means i've got to change my game I’ve got to build my life muscle.
I want to live well. I want to play the game of life.
I want to remind people to play the game of life.
All my life when i was a kid and i'm going through this the thing i love about music is i'm absolutely unlimited i am genuinely at one.
It is a profound spiritual experience and i'm completely free.
We are not our boundaries.
We are not the little box that we are put in.
We are the people that can overcome those boundaries.
We are the people who can overcome those obstacles.
