I wrote ‘By Now’ sitting on my front porch. I was stuck in a soul-sucking job where I was underpaid, under appreciated, and was generally unsatisfied with what my life had become. I began to compare my life to the ivy weeds, under my unkempt hedge bush in my front yard…undesirable, unremarkable.
When you’re a kid you have these lofty dreams of “one day I’ll be an astronaut or a Nobel Peace Prize winner or the best athlete to have ever played their sport” and everyone tells you that you’re destined for it! What’s not told is that most of us will just be…average. That’s not meant as degradation, it’s just the truth. Most of us will live a rather average and plain existence…but what’s so wrong with that? What’s so wrong with just ‘being’? I don’t mean this to say that we don’t have dreams and aspirations, but what’s so bad about being present in your current reality and making the world better right where you’re at?
This song is my reckoning with my normality. “This isn’t where I thought I’d be by now” is a revelation that though the way I imagined my life, marriage, work, friendships, money, faith, etc. didn’t look at all like the grandeur I was promised I’d obtain…where I was/am is exactly where I was/am supposed to be. I hope listeners find some solace and contentment in the value of their life right where they are at.