I walk into a party, people hand me the aux. I jump into a car, people hand me the aux. Everywhere I go, I have the aux cord. I don’t know if it’s the vibe I give off or if it’s the way I look, or the way I walk but people just seem to know that when I’m in control of the aux everything is lit. I embrace this assumption which is a really good assumption because 10 times out of 10 everything I play is fire. With this being said, it probably doesn’t come to a surprise to you when I say that I am an aux hog.

When I was about 7 or 8 I began making mixed cd’s of the hottest rap songs and I think that’s where it all began. I would burn them off of my brother’s Limewire or iTunes and bump to them daily. Whenever my friends came over I’d pop a cd I burned into the cd player and introduced them to a whole new world of music. I’m talking Nelly, early Kanye West, Twista, Ja Rule; life changing stuff here. From early on my peers respected my song choice.

I hate giving up the aux for one sole purpose: someone is going to kill my vibe. This usually happens when someone wants to change things up and listen to some country and at that point, I’m trying to remind myself of all the reasons why I should not jump out of that moving car. I’m incredibly picky with the aux and my worst fear is giving it to someone who has zero taste in good music. But recently I’ve learned something.

I was at a party and my phone was about to die and I realized that the fate of my good vibes was about to be in the hands of someone else. I had to mentally prepare myself for whatever I was about to hear next. I asked if there was anyone around who wanted the aux next. Some basic chick spoke up and said that she would take it. I looked past her and tried to find somebody else to pass it off to because I was not about to be listening to some damn Taylor Swift. No one. There were no other options so I reluctantly gave up the aux cord to Becky.

You wouldn’t believe it but next thing I knew I was vibing again! I have no clue what Becky was bumping but I was feeling it. I even took a picture of her playlist because it was that good. That night I learned a very important lesson about sacrifice.

Sacrifice can sometimes be scary. You may not always know if what you are giving up will be worth it. But you have to take that chance. Because I was able to sacrifice the aux, I was exposed to a new genre of music that I had no idea I liked. My horizons expanded! I underestimated others and maybe had a bit too much confidence in myself.