Illegal music? What illegal music? Who me? Yeah, I confess.. I don’t need to go into details about how much music I had, but I had more than enough. It was QUITE a struggle for me, but in the end I came through. So you’re probably wondering why? Well.. a couple of reasons..

First of all, whether what the music industry does with music is right or wrong, having music that artists aren’t giving you for free is illegal. What’s the big deal? Well, for many of you it may not be a big deal.. but for me, I know that its just something I needed to do.

..So this is a huge deal for me.. there is a LOT of music that has been suchh a huge part of my life over the past few years. I’ve never had extra money to buy CDs, infact I recently bought one of my FIRST CDs. I didn’t have much growing up and my family sure didn’t.. so if I wanted music I had to download it.

When I got started it wasn’t such a big deal.. I didn’t see anything wrong with it and I certainly wasn’t hurting anybody. I’m still not hurting anybody, but I know that, to however small a degree, its wrong.

Yeah, it hurts.. I’ve lost a LOT of my favorites.. and now I’m stuck with a scanty few CDs, nearly all of them straight classical music (which is fine ;).. I’ll probably go into some kind of withdrawel.. and I’ll have the times when its definitely going to be a struggle, but in the end I think its worth it.

SO! Now I’m going to start setting aside a small music fund.. those $.89 and $0.99 cent songs aren’t sounding all that bad now ;). It also means that I’m going to be careful about what I pick, hehe..

I’m not doing this ‘cuz I’m scared of what might happen if I got ‘caught’.. definitely not. I’m doing this because I feel its the right thing to do and because I want to set a good example. Its not easy.. and it never is. I just remember the golden rule.. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I have friends that are well established musicians and I have friends who are incredible up and coming musicians.. in a big way this is also about giving them the respect that they deserve.

So anway.. the next few weeks are gonna be a bit tough. I found out AFTER deleting my libaries and my backups that a few of the CDs I DO own got corrupted.. so now I’m stuck with about 20 classical music pieces and some Mat Kearney .. I’m not going back though :).

Alright! I’m ALSO changing my sleeping habits.. again! After this weekend I’m going back to my 9:30 to 4:30.. its just a must.. I’ve proved it time and time again, getting up early is ALWAYS the best way for me to start my day.

Goodnight world!

-Jonathan Wold

Daily Action Step:

Working on Amae’s site and taking a huge step and cleaning up my music.