LIFE IS A ROAD TRIP

No idea what to do next? Here's a word from Push speaker Moj Taylor, on the beauty of the unplanned road trip.

"When I was in sixth form, apart from myself and my best friends, it felt like everyone else around me had a good idea of the type of job they wanted to do.

Of all the people I keep in touch with now, half aren't doing the careers they said they wanted to do. The ones who are driving themselves everyday to personal and professional success are those who followed what they were curious about, because that meant work didn't feel like work.

My best friend from school? He dropped out of university after repeating his first year twice at Newcastle University realising, after a second bite at the cherry, that the course really wasn't exciting him.

He moved back home, worked his backside off and drained his parent's internet (and fridge supplies), spent money on trying new things whilst saving a significant amount too.

He explored a range of careers and stumbled upon what he does now: he closed his eyes and with a pen and paper in his hand, he began to spill his favourite childhood and teenage memories out onto a piece of paper.

He came to the conclusion after a lot of soul searching, that he wanted to work in the music industry. Now, he'd never wanted to be a musician or a DJ or a producer, but he grew up loving bands.

He wrote down that his favourite memories were of being sat (usually with me, spoils of a McDonalds drive-thru in hand) in a car park playing CD after CD that we'd just spent our part-time job money on.

We would analyse all the lyrics, melodies and read the inner album sleeves from first to last page (ah, the days of albums as a physical concept.) We would stuff french fries in our mouthes and debate about how the music was made, and why they made particular choices on the record.

We even used to develop our Spanish skills for our GCSE listening and oral exams, by translating our favourite songs into Spanish, and not a second of it felt like revision – it really helped us recall information in the tests.

What does this friend of mine do now with his life? What has his life journey plotted out for him?

Well, he saved up his pennies over a couple of years, found an internship with American Express in hospitality in New York (with us getting Blink 182 tattoos during the few days I visited him),  got a job offer and a working visa, moved to LA for his job, met and married a Californian blonde, and now works pretty high up in a little West Coast company called... Sonos.

Actually they're not little, they're of the biggest electronics producers in the world, particularly specialising in smart speakers.

Everyday he says he learns new and wonderful things about speaker systems and how sound travels across a space, and how it affects billions peoples' lives in the best possible way.

He has to learn new things everyday in his career (as technology is forever changing the use of sound) but he wants to get up and learn. He said he wouldn't ever want to be the last person in his team to know about new developments.

And yes, we still chat occasionally about the first tattoos we ever got: matching Blink 182 ones, inked by a big hairy Harley Davidson biker-looking guy, in the backstreets of Manhattan.

Every time Blink 182 come on the radio or on my Spotify shuffle, I think of him and how happy he now is living in California with his wife.

How all that time ago we were sat in our sixth form study area at the end of year 12 banging our heads on the desks, wondering how we were ever going to make enough money to live healthily and happily doing something we were both passionate about.

Know this; life is not an underground journey, it is a road trip. It is never just about the destination. Have a loose idea of where you're going, but enjoy the journey each day. That is much more important in the long run."