When people think of raving they think of college students who just want to party, drink a ton, and do drugs. Which really isn’t exactly true for everyone. There will always be some people who just want to party and get drunk at raves, but not everyone. Many people are there for the music and great times. But raving can teach you about life in many ways as well.
What Raving Can Teach You About Life
Whether people believe it or not people who go to raves learn things over their course of raving. Not everyone ends up learning everything from raving, but they will learn at least one or two things.
It is pretty hard not to learn something when going to raves and festivals. There are some lessons that are more obvious than others, but there is always something new to learn. Like being prepared.
Be Prepared
Not everyone starts out knowing how to be prepared for festivals or raves. But after their first festival, they will start trying to be more prepared for their next festival. The reason being that if you are unprepared for a festival you either have to pay a ton for the things you need or live without it.
Items at festivals are expensive. Plain and simple. So if you forget something like a hoodie for festivals that can get cold then you have to go and buy an expensive festival hoodie or end up freezing.
And if everyone at the festival didn’t plan for it to be cold you might not be able to get a hoodie or anything warm because they can sell out.
Take EDC Las Vegas 2019 for example. It was much colder than people expected it to be and so they sold out of blankets, jackets, hoodies, and anything else that could warm you up.
Let’s not forget that all of those ranged from $40 to $80 before taxes and because it was at the festival itself it was actually a little more expensive due to not being able to leave the festival to get warmer clothing.
That is unless you were at Camp EDC which gives you re-entry. There are also many other reasons that you should camp at Camp EDC instead of being in a hotel.
Either way, if you aren’t prepared you will wish you were. So over time, as you continue to go to festivals and raves you start being more prepared. It is only natural because you don’t want to end up in the same situation as before when you weren’t prepared.
Life is Unexpected
Now you don’t have to learn this from raving itself, but when you do rave you learn to expect the unexpected. Because life is unexpected and not everything goes as planned so you might as well make the most of it.
Times change and when you rave there will always be something that comes up and is unexpected. While raving you might come across DJs that don’t show up on time or have to cancel for some reason. It isn’t what you wanted, but it happens so you just have to make do with the situation.
Festivals might be canceled or moved to different venues and that is out of our control. Even at a festival, we might lose our groups or lose something we needed. We just need to make the most of it and have fun anyway.
Since ravers get so used to handling these unexpected events it makes it easier to overcome other unexpected events in life. It also prepares them to start expecting the unexpected and making the most out of these new situations throughout life.
Love Exists
In our new generations, everyone seems fake and I am not talking about plastic surgery. I am talking about people pretending to be someone they aren’t. And being catfishes as well. It is hard to feel like someone is being genuine and that the “love” that you have or feel is real.
But raving is about being yourself and spreading universal love. It is the one bright light at the end of the tunnel that keeps us going. Because…
No matter the hardships we go through we will find love or feel loved while at raves and festivals. It changes the game and brings together people who can be themselves. Even if they feel like they can’t be 100% themselves on a daily basis.
It proves that there still is real love out there and the feeling of being loved for who you are is empowering. It lifts our spirits and can give people the confidence they need to finally be themselves on a daily basis.
Not to hide behind the screens and pretend that we are someone who is liked or likable. Because we already are liked and loved for who we are.
When you already know the feeling of being loved you want to share it with others and that spread of universal love grows and doesn’t die off. And hopefully, it will reach everyone who needs it and everyone that wants it as well.
Starting Alone Or In A Group Doesn’t Matter
It doesn’t matter whether you are alone when you get to a festival because you can always find a place where you belong. If you move states or countries there will always be a place where you belong as well, you just have to find it.
Ravers learn this a lot because if you go solo to a festival you will probably find a few groups who want you to join them. They might love your energy, your outfit, you yourself, anything. But you will most likely make a ton of new friends at any festival even if you go alone.
Plus all of these new friends you meet might be the right place for you to be. This could be your perfect group of friends that you wouldn’t have met without going to a festival.
Now if you go with a group it still doesn’t matter because you will always be adding people to your group. I mean everyone loves to make new friends at festivals and these friendships can last a lifetime even.
What you learn from this is that it is okay to move new places alone or take the “road least traveled on” if you want to go all cliche. Since you will find the right place you belong at some point and it doesn’t have to be where you started out or a random place along the way.
The place where you belong can even be at a festival or with your newly found friends.
Networking
People go to festivals and raves from many places in the world and fly into their favorite festivals. This means you can make friends all over the world and your once small world expands into new opportunities.
Making friends at festivals leads you to new opportunities for things you might have never thought of. Or even moving to a new city or visiting a new country because of your new friends.
Networking in our generations is key to basically everything. It is who you know now and not just what you know. The more people you meet the more opportunities you may have in life.
Now at a festival, you have a chance to meet people from all walks of life, but just know that it isn’t about just saying hi and adding each other on social media. You have to make a real connection with them.
We Come From All Walks Of Life
Ravers may all look like one big group of people who look quite similar, but we aren’t. You might attend a rave or festival and look one way, but that doesn’t mean you dress like that on a regular basis. And it definitely doesn’t mean you all work in the same type of places.
Just like in the movie Zootopia “Anyone can be anything.” It works at festivals and in the rest of the world too. The person you see at a rave or festival can be a doctor, elementary school teacher, engineer, waitress, cook, etc. We can come from anywhere.
You can be from any walk of life and still like the same things. You don’t have to give up something because it might not seem like something a person in your same career should do.
Just like if you were a mom of small children it does not mean you have to give up going out and being a raver. It shouldn’t stop you from being yourself. Nothing in the world should stop you from being you.
Patience
Oh my goodness patience is like the hardest thing in the world to learn. Especially if you have always been an impatient person. But at festivals, you must learn.
And the reason I say that is because you have to wait in so many long lines to go to any festival. You have the ticket lines, then the bag check lines, then the security checks. Oh and don’t forget the food lines, the alcohol lines, and most importantly the bathroom lines.
No matter what you will spend time waiting at a festival. Whether you have VIP status or not there will be a line somewhere. Patience is something that you have to learn or learn to distract yourself well enough.
You will be bored. You will be annoyed. Maybe even hot from standing in line all day, but it is still worth it.
Though if you can learn to be patient at a festival then you can learn to be patient anywhere else.
It’s Okay Not To Fully Grow Up
So many times I hear people say that they can’t keep raving because they are now too old. Excuse me, what?! There is no such thing as being “too old to rave”.
When people hit a certain age or point in their lives they feel as though they have to truly grow up. That is not the case. You can rave for however long you want.
There are many people who continue to rave in their 80s+, which means you have no excuse for age. It is just that some people believe you have to do drugs and drink to have fun at a festival or rave. News flash, you don’t.
They just believe that they need to put a partying time behind them and grow up. Now you can still grow up and rave. Just don’t fully grow up, it is a trap.
And a trap that many people fall into because they lose the fun in their lives. Now if you take festivals in moderation and don’t go all out in the first year or so then it feels less of a college/party lifestyle and more as a break from life.
Moderation
Not everyone learns moderation from festivals, but when people rave for so long they learn over time that it is better in moderation. If you want to go to raves and festivals year-after-year then it is best not to do it all in your first few years.
That way you can continue going to festivals and raves without feeling burnout or that you grew out of it. And there is more festivals that you haven’t gone to yet as well. Adding in that new factor throughout the years makes it all more exciting.
Everything in life is about moderation and if you can learn that earlier it will be easier on you. Drinking in moderation is okay for you and you don’t have to drink to be drunk either.
Partying in moderation can relieve stress and have a break from the struggles of daily life. But when we indulge in these things it can make life worse or just burn us out of feeling any fun from them.
Acceptance
When people go to festivals they see so much diversity that it becomes the norm. We accept people as they are and that is what EDM Festivals are about. It is instilled in us as we continue to rave.
Shoot after raving for a while you will feel like you have already seen everything that things don’t shock you much anymore.
Though when it comes to people bring in items it can be shocking like somehow bringing in a full-sized vacuum to EDC Las Vegas 2019. Like, what?! Why?!
To each their own though. The more diverse the rave community is the more fun it can be and the more accepting we are of each other in our daily lives.
And I will say that I love ravers due to the fact that we accept everyone. That doesn’t mean we like everyone and don’t get annoyed with others, which we definitely do get annoyed. But is just means we don’t judge everyone for being who they want to be and who they are.
So overall raving can teach you about life in many ways. It helps us learn valuable skills for the future and whether we know we are learning or not we actually gain these skills. It doesn’t always have to be a conscious decision to learn something new sometimes it just comes to us.
