Find What You Are Looking For

I have been writing a lot about dreams lately and here is another post for your reading pleasure. Next week, I will move on to more topics, but I think this is important. The biggest mistake we can make in life is to start chasing things that aren't our dreams. Instead of doing what we know we should be doing, we go after the money, the fame, the prestige, the American Dream. You can have all the money and toys in the world, but unless you are doing what you are supposed to be doing, you aren't going to find what you are looking for.

This is a hard lesson to learn, because it isn't what we are taught. When we are children and asked what we want to be when we grow up, no one ever says they want to be a struggling artist. No one says they want to struggle at all. There are a lot of answers of doctor, lawyer, princess, cowboy, etc. None of the answers are bad, if this is what you are supposed to be doing. We need doctors and lawyers and princesses and cowboys, but not everyone can be one or is driven to be one. We have to get better at teaching children to listen to that little voice, the one we have learned to silence for so long, and to do what is going to make them happy, not just wealthy. The struggle is what makes us great.

We tell the children they can do anything they put their mind to, but we then make them behave and sit in nice straight rows and speak softly and not daydream and conform and stop being so imaginative. We drill them with facts and numbers but continue to take away time and money from the arts. We get them on a schedule and convince them getting A's in every subject is more important than doing anything else because they have to get into a great college to be anything. Unless they are prodigious from an early age, we push them away from the arts, because there isn't any money in it anyway, and convince them to become doctors or lawyers or bankers because they can make money and live a nice life.

Why? Are you happy doing what you are doing? If so, is it because someone forced you to to conform and stop dreaming and buckle down to do the work you are doing? Or did you find your passion? If you are unhappy, is it because you let them force you to conform and stop dreaming and buckle down to do the work you are doing? The people who are doing great work today are usually doing it in spite of what others tried to force them to do. They dreamed their own dreams and blazed their own paths. They didn't believe the BS being force fed to them. Shouldn't we be training the children to do this? Shouldn't we want more for them? Shouldn't we be teaching them to think for themselves and to chase their dreams?

What Will You Give Up?

Where will your path lead?

There are lots of people (myself included) who will stress the importance of chasing your dreams. We talk about why you should chase them and how it will help you lead the life you are supposed to lead. Most of these people leave out the part about having to give up other things in order to chase your dreams. For some, this may be an obvious fact, but to others, this may come as a surprise.

In some cases, you will know exactly what you will need to give up. If you want a dream career and you start chasing it, you will have to give up the job your currently have. If your dream involves getting in better shape to do something, then you will have to give up some of the food your currently eat. Obvious, right? But, to get in better shape, you will also have to exercise a lot more, which means you have to give up something to have the time to do this. Will it be watching TV or some sleep or reading or going out with friends? For everything we decide to do, we will be giving up things.

If you want to be a great writer, then you need to write every day. Most of us don't have tons of time we are looking to fill in our days, so something has to be given up. The same is true with any dream requiring practice (and the vast majority do). These decisions aren't always easy, either. When we have been doing anything for a period of time, it is difficult to give it up to start something else. What are you willing to give up to chase your dreams? Money? Sleep? Friends? Hobbies? TV?

You may look at the previous list and think you wouldn't have to give up your friends to chase your dreams. Once you start chasing them, you will realize there are people who just don't understand the new direction you are taking. There are other people who feel slighted because you aren't spending as much time with them because you are chasing your dreams. Some people will drift out of your life, but the true friends will still be there, even when you don't speak with them for extended periods. When you start chasing your dreams, you start moving down a path you haven't followed before. You will never see what is along this path until you start moving down it.

No one ever said chasing our dreams is going to be easy and many of us didn't realize we would have to give up so many things in order to chase them. They wouldn't be real dreams if they were easy, now would they? The greatest things in life are often the hardest to get. To chase your dreams, you will have to make some tough decisions. You will have to stop doing some things you enjoy doing. Some people will be unhappy. These are your dreams...what's stopping you from chasing them?