Following your dreams

One of the first things I remember about my childhood is the question we’re all asked at one point or another, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My answer was always, “I want to be a doctor!”. I have no idea why I said it, or why I was so adamant about it. I didn’t even like doctors all that much. I think my father whispered it in my ear every night as I was sleeping, “You want to be a doctor. You will be a doctor,” etc, etc.  It was in 7th grade compacted math that I decided being a doctor was probably not the best thing for me (or my potential clients).

I have always been artistically geared, anyway. I was a musician, an actress, a painter, a crafter and also very athletic (but a total klutz all the same). I always loved animals and decided a compromise may exist in being a veterinarian. So what if vet school was supposedly harder to get into?! I was on the animal science track for a semester, but then my father swooped in and ruined my chances of ever being considered. Long story short, I didn’t score high enough in chemistry to be eligible...anywhere. That was pretty depressing.

As you saw in another post, I considered music as well. That was my pipe dream of “doing what I love” for a living and that was squashed immediately, so I went down the path of do-something-you-will-make-money-for. Everyone has a moment of selling out I guess and I think that’s what journalism was for me. I wasn’t smart enough for music theory, I was too distracted with family crisis to really concentrate on chemistry, so I turned to journalism. Hey, it doesn’t pay much but at least I know I can write. That was successful and led me to good opportunities for sure, but it’s got me thinking about the “doing what I love” thing again.

Living in NYC has certainly opened my eyes to how short life is and how fast time passes. I equate one year in NYC to 5 years where I’m from in Tennessee. It’s just hard to keep up with it. It’s May? Really?! I’m also surrounded by people who hate what they do for a living. I think it has to do with those parents who fed us lies in our sleep. The idea that you can only be happy if you’re in a position making beau coups is preposterous in this day and age. Hell, after the economy crash, I get the feeling everyone must be reevaluating things. I have met people who worked and saved everything they had, working jobs they hated to invest and watch it all disappear over night! It makes you reconsider what’s more important...your sanity or making money?

I’m not saying you should quit your job and become a rock star with no money to support you during the trial period, but maybe finding a way to make money doing something you truly enjoy. The real challenge is getting past the idea that you can’t do it and you’d never get anywhere and be poor the rest of your life. I mean, doesn’t that seem so counter-intuitive? Why wouldn’t you be good at something you love so much?! Why is it so hard for most people to fathom?

For most, I think, it’s the starting over that’s the hardest hurdle to climb over. It’s what I’m facing as well. How do I make those four years of college not seem like a giant waste of time and money if I decide to take a completely different career path? How can I jump into my new line of work and make the same amount of money I do now so I can sustain my current standard of living? It’s a fear that keeps people in bad relationships, too, but that’s a whole different discussion.

This isn’t meant to be a motivational speech, and I certainly don’t intend on making the world wake up tomorrow and start a completely new job, but there are just too many miserable people out there (myself included). This is not the dream I had envisioned. I find myself asking these questions: How do I keep holding on to my dreams without losing grasp of everything I truly care about? How do I protect my dreams from corporate corruption? How do I manipulate what I’m doing now into something I can be actually proud of and happy to do? What is it that I really want to do?

That last question is the hardest and easiest to answer. Quite simply, I want to do everything! I want to write the next great American novel, I want to publish a photography book that could rival Tim Flach’s Equus, I want to train horses and riders, I want to photograph animals with their people and actually make a living off it, I want to travel the country and world, and really...I want to live and not worry. It’s a lot, but really, it’s not. I can do all of that. I’ve done so much more up to this point and wow, I have a lot of years left. I am still young enough to make a complete 180 from where I am now.

So, now, I’m trying to figure out a way to take my talents and meld them into something I can really be proud of and something that the public can appreciate and seek. I just have to make it happen.

It’s just like starting a term paper. Even if it’s on a subject you know and love inside and out, that first paragraph is always the hardest to write, because it’s the most important. You outline everything that’s most important and it stands as the foundation to the entire body of work. It’s the same thing starting a new career you’re unsure will be successful. You have to put yourself out there and really take the risk that it won’t work out, but you have to establish the reasons you’re taking the risk, because, otherwise, you may lose your inspiration.

However you do it, you have to have courage and faith in yourself. So, then what do you tell yourself right as you’re jumping off the cliff into the great unknown?

Geronimo!