If there’s one thing I hate about living your dreams, it’s the idea that you can only do it if you live an unconventional life.
Look around, and you’ll see that tons of people are telling us that we have to challenge authority, fight the status quo, and blaze our own trails to be living our dreams.
On one level I get it.
If you’re living a life someone else has laid out for you, you’re not really living your dreams. You’re living their dreams for you.
And if you’re going through the motions – going to college because you should, getting a corporate job because you should, and submitting yourself to the torture of the grind because you should – well, you’re not living your dreams then either.
But who says that to be living your dreams you need to be so revolutionary? Why must we be so contrarian? Why do we have to break the shackles of society and run off to all corners of the world? Just for the sake of doing it?
Here’s my real problem with this view: If you believe that you’re not living your dreams until you sell everything, go off the grid, and challenge the status quo, then most of us will never do it. And if you have only this one model for living your dreams then this becomes status quo too.
Because here’s the truth. We like stability. We like taking our kids to the bus stop in the morning. We enjoy knowing where we’ll go to sleep tonight. And we like eating food that isn’t from questionable origin.
And just because we like that stuff doesn’t mean we can’t still have dreams for ourselves – and we shouldn’t be led to believe that we’re doomed to mediocrity and uniformity, like cookie-cutter versions of each other just because we’re more conventional.
You and I can choose a path that feels “normal” while still being just brazen enough to really be challenging ourselves.
Call us boring. Call us square. Do your worst – call us soccer parents. Go ahead. We can take it.
Because until now there hasn’t been anyone who has said it’s ok to want stability and a challenge at the same time.
There hasn’t been anyone telling you that you can live your dreams without blowing up your life as you know it.
There hasn’t been a single soul as far as I can tell who will tell you you can make your dreams happen right from your suburban living room.
So I’m saying it.
I know it can be done. I’ve helped people do it.
You can forge your own path (not the path you think you should take or the one others tell you to follow).
You can live your own dreams (not what they tell you you should dream about).
Because the truth is, when it comes to our dreams, only we get to decide what’s right. And we shouldn’t be told we’re thinking small if our truest dreams just happen to involve the conventional path.
What do you think? Go ahead, leave a comment!