Justin Bieber - Justin Bieber - First Step 2 Forever, My Story

“Look for the good,” Grandpa says.

In our family, all the kids know they’re loved, and, for the most part, everybody’s able to just get over themselves and be cool. You just love and accept everybody as they are. You forgive others and hope that others will forgive you, because God forgives us all six hundred times a day, and he doesn’t sit around busting heads about it.

So it’s up to you and it’s up to me

That we meet in the middle

On our way back down to earth...

My dad was away at work a lot of the time, and, yeah, that sucked for me sometimes. It sucked for him, too. But in life you realize that the world’s not perfect and if it had been up to us we’d have been together all of the time. And it sucked for my mom, because being a single parent is never easy, especially with a little prankster like me. There were times when my mind went to “What if such and such?” or “It could have been like da-da-da.”

But, as of right now, my life is working out pretty sweet and every morning I wake up grateful for the blessings that I have.

“I admire her so much for how she got her life together and made a life for me”

Two of those blessings are my new baby brother, Jaxon, and my little sister, Jazmyn, who are my dad’s children and are the cutest kids in the world. I would do anything for them.

Now I’m on the road, I won’t be around as much as I wish I could be while they’re growing up, but they’ll always know I’m their big brother and I love them. I wouldn’t trade them for all the what-ifs and could-have-beens in the world.

My mom has been up front and honest with me about the choices she made when she was my age, some of which were not the best and made life difficult for her and her family. Before I was born, she started going to church, and that became super-important to her. She could see the kind of person and the kind of Mom she wanted to be.

After she had me, she had to work really hard all the time, but she never complained. She let me be myself, but she kept an eagle eye on me, stayed strong about discipline, and impressed on me the importance of doing the right thing and keeping God in my life. I admire her so much for how she learned from her mistakes, got her life together, and made a life for me.

I was two years old in 1996 when The Cardigans had their monster hit “Lovefool,” the lead single from their First Band on the Moon album. It was featured in this crazy film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which is also dope. Any guy can relate to Romeo, who’s trying really hard to be cool in front of his crew, but he can’t stop looking at all these beautiful girls all over Verona, and then he falls victim to one of the killer crushes of all time.

My friends say I’m a fool to think that you’re the one for me.

I guess I’m just a sucker for love...

That’s me. Total sucker for love. That’s not a bad thing. What kind of jerk doesn’t want love? I bet 95% of sixteen-year-old guys would admit to thinking forty-five girl-related thoughts every three minutes. (The other 5% would be lying.) Everybody wants love, and there’s something about that Romeo and Juliet theme – the star-crossed lovers who can’t be together because of what other people have to say about it.

“It’s universal,” says Dan Kanter (my lead guitarist, musical director – and possibly nicest guy in the world). “It strikes a chord.”

Dan looks like a young version of Paul Simon and plays like – like – well, he plays like Dan Kanter. I can’t even think of anything to compare it to. Except maybe a mix of Fergie and Jesus. He has a bachelor’s degree in classical composition and analysis and is currently getting his master’s degree in musicology.

“Not a performance degree,” he specifies. “Music in society. I try not to think about theory when I’m on stage, but classical music taught me that art history was very linear, and now it’s fragmented, and I really enjoy that.”

Okaaaaaay??? I’m not really sure what he’s talking about but obviously Dan is pretty smart. I guess what he might be trying to say is music is part of all of our lives, that it’s like a timeline. Looking back, I see this trail of music, a million great songs that came out of the radio and passed through my head over the years, and every once in a while one of them pops up in something I’m doing now, because it’s all part of me.

Tom really took our vision on and designed a crazy cool opening for the touring show, and I don’t want to give any of the surprises away, but I get to sort of emerge from the fog and slam into “Love Me.” The show’s opening makes me sound like a bad-ass.

“I get to sort of emerge from the fog and slam into ‘Love Me.’ The show’s opening makes me sound like a bad-ass.”

Back in 1996, Mom says I was all about the beat. And I suppose that makes sense. Before anything else, you gotta have rhythm. She loved pop music and played the radio loud when we were in the car. At home, she’d crank her stereo listening to Boyz II Men or Michael Jackson. I’d wail on whatever was handy – pots and pans, plastic bowls, tables and chairs – with whatever else was handy. Like a spoon or the phone or my fists. She got me a little toy drum kit, probably to keep me from destroying the place, and I hammered on that until people started noticing I was actually laying down a pretty sick beat.

My mom is an absolute sweetheart who has this vivacious, goofy personality, so there were always a lot of interesting, artsy people hanging around our place. I think artsy people who can’t afford to go anywhere tend to hang out in the living room of the coolest person, playing guitars and talking about philosophy or whatever, and that’s the living room I grew up in. (I guess I just also realized that with my mom being single, a lot of those guys were probably hitting on her, but again: freakout factor. Not gonna go there.)

At the church my mom went to, there was a lot of music during worship, and most of it was backed by a contemporary praise band. The people in the band were friends, and, while we were hanging out with them, sometimes the percussionist would let me play with the various noisemakers. When he saw that I wanted to play – not just play – he’d let me sit on his knee while he played on the drum kit, and, after a while, he handed me the sticks and let me have a go at it.

By the time I was four or five, I could climb up on the stool and play the kit all by myself, and, about that same time, I discovered I could get up on the piano bench and pound on that, too.

Much to everyone’s surprise, it started sounding like actual music.

So here might be a good place to stop and say that if there’s an annoying little kid in your life – a little brother or some kid you babysit for – who wants to make noise and pretend to play music, I hope you’ll put up with him. Because, at some point, he won’t be playing anymore. He’ll be playing. Kids have to be allowed to do things they’re no good at. How else are they supposed to learn?

And, while you’re at it, you have to let yourself do stuff you’re not good at. Don’t get hung up on what other people think about what you’re doing. Dare to be a sucky skateboarder or a lousy video editor or a completely crappy golfer. If we do only the stuff we’re good at, we never learn anything new. Think of all the great possibilities in life that pass by because we’re too chicken to explore them and risk looking like a loser. Screw the haters who have nothing better to do than make fun of people who are brave enough to put themselves out there. Get out of your comfort zone and go for it. You never know unless you try.