Working to attend raves, festivals, and concerts has become the norm in today’s society. From people taking up volunteer shifts at festivals to gain access as well as picking up second shifts or working longer hours to earn extra income to pay for expenses related to partying and going to raves. The duality of lifestyles we live between our work life and rave life can often interfere with one another if things are not balanced out. If electronic music culture is within your heart and soul, then over-working especially on something you’re not passionate about is a sure way to burn you out- if you don’t balance it with what you enjoy most.  The need to make a living and thrive in one’s career is equally as important as letting loose on the dancefloor for hours to alleviate the everyday stress, but when does all this become too much?

Over the past 16-years, I have witnessed ravers from all walks of life raving on the weekend yet somehow they always had their shit together in life. I have also witnessed the ones who would rave just as hard but always seemed to struggle and I am not comparing any of this in a financial sense but more of an overall presence.

Struggling doesn’t always mean financial struggle- we’re talking about mental struggle, emotional struggle, and just overall struggling until the next Rave. The week passes by no matter what we do, and some make it great and some drag their feet. It’s a crazy parallel trying to juggle the two and find the right balance but there is a way to make it all work to your favor and advantage.

We’ve all heard of two sides of the coin, the ones who are over-working and needing a break and the ones who are over-partying and needing a break. If both ends of the spectrum lead you to “taking a break” then finding that balance is absolutely necessary

 

The Problem With Over-Working

I don’t need to explain too much in detail why over-working is just bad. Have you ever noticed you feel grumpier and are low on energy when you’re highly stressed about work? Especially work you don’t care about? Let me tell you, even work that you do love and care about can cause stress and mental breakdowns if you are over-working the engine at a high stressed level over a long period of time.

Oftentimes when people are feeling over-worked they have the tendency to think that partying one night or a weekend will alleviate the stress of their over-working. After all, they are having some fun and relieving some stress, what harm can it do?

Well if your work is piling on and you have a mountain of responsibilities to handle, partying for even one weekend will only cause you more stress when Monday morning comes when there is more riding on you because of the hangover you’re feeling. While the temporary relief of the weekend might be awesome, what follows suit if you’re in a place in life where work is just stacking up with more responsibilities, you’re going to fumble and crumble.

There is just no way for someone to be overworking, go rage out on the weekend, and then come back crushing it at their career the following week. Everyone suffers when this happens – you, your work, and your mental state; you become even more stressed because your work will fall behind or you will burn the candle on both ends leaving you feeling “burnt out”.  The cycle will never end if this is how you choose to battle the situation. When work is overwhelming you, partying through the weekend is NOT the solution especially if you don’t have a proper recovery plan put in place. We’ll go over that later in a bit but for now, let’s look at the other spectrum.

 

The Downfall with Over-Partying

Just going to flat out say that over-partying is the quickest way to bring your life down. Whether you’re riding high on success and feel the need to celebrate or you’re feeling a bit down and feel the need to escape- over-partying every weekend is the overdrive that will take you to rock bottom, and here is why.

Over-partying and overindulgence can happen when one feels good about themselves aka “yeah I earned it and I deserve this!” or when one doesn’t feel good about themselves either, “Life sucks, f*ck it, let’s party!”. Both of these moods can be the starting trigger to a slippery slope.

Oftentimes, all it takes is one good party leading to the afterparties which then leads you to chase down the parties every weekend until it becomes a routine. One may say it’s to escape or to have fun but at what point does it become harming and damaging? Over-doing anything regardless of what it is, eating, sleeping, exercising, hell even over-drinking water can cause damaging effects and over-partying certainly has its own repercussion. So many of us chase the high, I get it because I have been there in my 20s and even into my early 30s. My work would often suffer both in my daytime job while also hindering my motivation to build 6AM during the earlier days because I was hungover and lacked the serotonin to do any creative work to push things forward. I wasted a lot of time simply being useless the following week.

Now some of you might say “That’s just you man, you can’t balance partying and your work as well as I can.” . That’s probably true but I will go on and ask if you really think partying hard every weekend will lead to your best creative work? If your answer is “yes”, there lies the problem: Thinking you are operating at your highest level when your head is always cloudy. How many of you have physically checked in to work on Mondays but really you are mentally checked out during work, especially after a weekend of partying? I can see all the hands being raised as I’m typing this out.

Look, partying isn’t a bad thing – we need it. After all, I am making a career organizing events, raves, and festivals and I know exactly what people are doing in there…they’re f*cking partying! So why would I write such an article that seemingly makes partying or going to raves a bad thing? Well to be clear, I am not, I just want to bring greater awareness of the spectrum between juggling your work/career while making time to having a good time if this is your jam. But all of this can work in harmony, let’s take a look at how to really manage the balance of work and rave.

 

The Need to Balance Working & Raving

Over-working and over-partying are bad as I have discussed but what makes the two super awesome and fun is finding a harmonious balance between them.

Imagine this: It’s Saturday night and you just crushed the week at work or your business. You have friends in town whom you haven’t seen in a while ready to also have a good time. There is a sick warehouse rave in the city and you all have your tickets. 9pm dinner reservation is set at one of your favorite Italian restaurants, all party favors are secured, and you and your friends are ready for a great night out. The music from the supporting DJ to the headliner was just top-notch and they all played their hearts out leaving you in awe. The vibe of the party is next level and the party favors are working super nice and super smooth. You make the conscious decision to end the night after this party and perhaps decompress at home with a few friends but cutting yourself off no matter the peer pressure. You actually get a good sleep after taking some heavy gummy edibles and wake up with a nice healthy vegan meal or a smoothie to replenish, or if you’re feeling like a real champ maybe a breakfast burrito – both are awesome recovery meals. You chill at home with your pet and/or significant others/friends and call it an early night without drinking through the day or evening. You wake up Monday feeling inspired from the weekend, you understand that you were able to have such a great weekend because of the awesome work you do during the week that supports it. You go on crush the rest of your week as usual.

What I just explained above is a perfect weekend and how to ensure you balance the two. It is a necessity to find the balance between working and partying and understand where your cut-off point lies in order to not tip over. My best advice for people when they are feeling over-worked and stressed is to actually go on a hike, take a day at the beach and use nature to re-align yourself first before diving straight into partying. Partying puts a strain on your body because you’re physically working by dancing all night. When you are already over-working and then putting your body through late-night dancing that’s just not the right combination for a well-balanced life between working and raving.

I know it’s tempting to do one more line, take one more shot, and stay up for just one more hour, or for some, one more day. Understand that the choices we make are bound by the discipline that creates our decision. It’s one I had to eventually learn as I got older and realized that partying and raving is a privilege that should not be taken advantage of no matter how accessible it is for me now.

Today, when I party (and I mean party party) it’s the best thing ever for me because I feel totally balanced with how I approach it and understand where my cut-off point is; and how to bounce back strong. It’s all planned and orchestrated to ensure that whatever I do during a weekend stretch doesn’t hinder my performance at work. If I know I need extra time to recover, I will take that extra time off as needed. Many of you call in sick on the day of, I suggest planning those days off and requesting them ahead of time. Everyone knows you’re not really sick on a Monday morning, you’re just sick of showing up to work after such a great time. I have been there many times and I know it wasn’t a good look for me around my co-workers.

If partying is a big part of your life, then finding the balance between your work and rave time is crucial and necessary for you to sustain this journey and make it last. I know so many people who go way too hard too fast and had to pull out of the scene because of the serious damage it had done to their mental and physical state. I hate seeing people fall off the face of the rave scene knowing they went over the edge. From seeing regular faces each month to wondering where they have gone always gets my head spinning like, “What happened?”. But I think I can answer that question now- when you can’t control the velocity of life and partying, it can get ugly for some.

I wish to see more people out to our events. I also wish people understood how to balance all of this out so the path doesn’t get dark where one needs to leave the scene. Some of the most fun I have heard from are people who come to our events and are the non-regulars; the ones who treat partying like therapy and use it as a tool to inspire and motivate themselves to tackle the week. Understanding this privilege is what will help you gain a better sense of how to balance a thriving career through the work you do and the need to rave every once in a while, just remember to not go off the edge. Good luck!