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I talked with an old friend yesterday. In highschool he started playing the guitar and started growing the dream that he would become a musician. He spent college nurturing this ambition, taking poetry classes to improve his song-writing abilities, going on drug assisted spiritual journeys, etc.
Recently, he dropped out of school. He told me, it wasn't helping his dream - he was paying huge amounts for a useless systematic education, when what he really needed was a creative spontaneous environment. He was going to instead travel the world and gain experiences and cultivate his music.
I asked him, "You think that's a good idea?" and he told me about his dad - a man who had been crazy passionate about biology, studied it as his major, and wanted to be a research scientist - but some how ended up at a english-japanese translating firm, with a stable job, stable income, but squashed and unrealized dreams. This dad was now having a mid life crisis, feeling as if he had forsaken a potential calling in life, in exchange for what seemed safe.
We talked some more about dreams. Some people are lucky. They have the right abilities with the right opportunities and turn their dreams into reality. Other's - all those once aspiring writers who become librarians or editors, folks like my friend's dad, who traded dreams for stability, out of fear of failure or incompetence, end up with invisible scar lines of discontent which eventually come back to haunt them.
However, sometimes it seems like dreams are given up because we believe we aren't good enough - because we actually aren't good enough. My friend said his dad gave up his dream because he couldn't ask the right questions, and in scientific research, the intuition of where to direct a team's curiosity is everything.
For the longest time, I had been obsessed about writing children's fiction. And I thought I was pretty decent at it, but after years of struggling - you start to realize your limits, and you start to feel what is and isn't practical.
Is it worth trading stability for intangible ambition? I'm not really sure. . . but I really do envy my friend, who has the balls to drop everything and pursue his dreams.
 
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I think it is worth it. The thing people don't think about enough when they debate this kind of trade-off is that it's a trade-off in both directions. My big dream as a young university student was to travel the world as an interpreter, instead I ended up with a more geographically stable job as a software developer. I really love my work, even if it's not what I was once passionate about, and having stability and a good income has allowed me to raise a family and to pursue other interests that wouldn't have been compatible with a "freer" lifestyle. Also, there's a false dichotomy between pursuing stable work and pursuing your passions. It's just a question of how much priority you give the two in your life, and working full-time and even having a family still leaves lots of time to pursue other interests.
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I have had this discussion a few times. I am generally of the opinion that you have to do what makes you happy - but the conditions for happiness vary from person to person. And how do you define 'chasing a dream'? For some people, a dream might be something as simple as settling down and raising a family, or it might be starting a business from scratch. It might just be making a lot of money or seeing a lot of things all over the world.
Stability could be a dream. It is certainly mine. I grew up in a household where, although I realise it more now that I am older, we had really not an awful lot. Parents were in debt, we lived in government housing - for many years we did not even have a telephone.
So now I am all grown up and on my own. I see the hardships that my family faced and NOT having them is simple enough to bring me a degree of contentment. I am a practical person. Having enough money at the end of the month to put into a savings account means a lot to me - that is what makes me happy, because I value safety and stability.
On the other hand I know people who think my attitude is incredibly boring and unambitions. Oh sure I have ambitions and dreams. I would like to get a book published one day, and I am still looking for that perfect career. But I would never drop everything I had to carve out for myself to go chasing them on a whim.
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You really have to make the difference here between "becoming a scientist" dream and "becoming a rocker" dream.
Dreaming of "becoming an astronaut", "becoming a doctor", "becoming a university teacher", "discovering a cure for X or inventing Y"... etc, that's dreaming of something you can achieve trough hard work but may never achieve due to having to find a stable job, a house, wanting to have a family, having to take care of parents or grandparents, poverty in your country... etc
The "I want to become a rocker" dream is pretty much " I want to win the lotto". I'm a rock fan myself, i love the stones to death, i love maiden to death and i love motorhead to death. I love 100 other bands but the only thing they did was managed to create decent songs and get a name for themselves out there.
Hell, Bob fucking dylan admitted to not even writing most of his tunes and only coming up with the lyrics and small improvements to give them something "catchy".
If your friend wants to spend his money on LSD and drinks and write songs than likely realize not a whole lot of people are interested than so be it, but its not exactly a dream in the sense of " I want to work hard and do something" it's mostly a dream of " Man... if I could make money out of somking weed and playing my guitar that would be kinda awesome".
And tho that's a dream worth investing small amount of time into it's not really a dream you have to give up on actual education to accomplish, the only thing you need is luck.
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Dreams are what we think we want when we haven't found it. When you find what you want, you want stability.
We will all have a "mid-life crisis" of sorts no matter what. We grow up in an environment of aspirations that can't possibly all be fulfilled. Whether you pick stability and you find out later that what you settled for wasn't what you thought it would be, or whether you chase a dream and find that you've left your potential stable, happy family behind for a nest of uncertainty and waking up everyday fighting a fight you've forgotten, there will be a "crisis" and eventually a catharsis that you can't have it all.
Just follow your heart and back it up with your head. Swinging too much one way or the other is just ignoring the other's existence and makes you worse off.
Don't follow your dream. Plan it. Plan all of it. Family, career, money, time, people. Life is too short to live stupidly.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51437 Posts
Yeah i learnt dreams aren't for everyone pretty quick. Was about 14/15, playing for the best football side in the league i was playing in (not the best in the city by all means, but one of, and the best in the league we played in with other 11teams). People always said i was good, and i played a decent level. But whenever scouts came they never ever looked at me, i was just never that good. After those days of childhood i rarely thought of myself as being a footballer anymore and just started to coast by on life. That is what i am doing now, coasting...in a stable job, doing as little as possible earning money. My car and computer is probably the best things i own (all be it my car is pretty good) but that is never what my dream was.
My point i guess im skating round is, try it when your young your "dream" if you don't succeed when your young you will not lose as much as you would say if you dropped out of college/university/a job to follow it then you would if you gave up when your a child. Also who knows to say what is round the corner, a huge lottery win, a chance at another goal of yours.
Nice blog though, i like ones that ask questions of people 
Also with your dream of fiction writing, is there no way you could get a job after university and write on the side? Just as a passion then see if any publishers will accept them when there complete (or is that just how it works in the movies?)
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I willingly abandoned all prospects of a normal life, even that which would be considered the basis of humanity for many, to pursue my dreams. I cursed myself to a short, miserable life, and I ultimately failed what I wanted to do because of mental disabilities. I will die with great regret for my weakness and inability to push ahead. But, given the chance, I would make the same decision again without hesitation.
The "stable" life that society offered me wasn't worth any consideration. Youth has nothing to do with it, not for me. It's the decision between living or not living. There is no gray area, no maybe, no trying. It's devotion or naught. And never in any of my dreams did I picture myself making a living off of it. I didn't want to, and I still don't want to. I was presented several times with the opportunity to turn my work into a job. I said, "No, that's not my dream. I am making stuff for myself, not for anyone else." The place of other people in this world is to simply pass me by. They are a blur, an illusion, a distraction if at all.
The price can never be too steep to live my dreams. I can, and have, sacrificed everything. Family, career, these things do not matter to me, I never had them nor do I want them. That's just not the kind of person I am.
But to pursue dreams in such a manner, one must be not only devout of fortitude, but of ability to learn and adapt with haste. I failed in the latter portion. I was simply born a lesser man.
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My dream was to achieve stable income
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if someone is making their own life choices and they have complete freedom in choosing what they want i really dont see how you can judge. i used to be like some of you; thinking it was crazy to chase a dream. thinking it was crazy not to plan everything out. now i realize the only thing that matters is freedom and what the individual chooses to do with it
i learn more and more everyday how truly different we all are. if someone wants to be poor and try and write songs all day who am i to tell him thats dumb. if someone wants to do a job they hate but they do it because it provides a stable life for them to raise a family who am i to judge them? i used to be ignorant like some of the posts im seeing here. i used to think the corporate types that were only after a paycheck to raise their family were scum. i couldnt understand why someone would do anything they didnt enjoy just for a paycheck. im sure some people out there actually want to be corporate pawns, and im sure some dont. i have come to realize it doesnt matter what i think when it comes to other people's choices. because unless they live in unfortunate circumstances, they are making those choices themselves and obviously they have a reason behind it even if i cant see or understand it. i have come to realize the only thing that matters is freedom and what one chooses to do with it doesnt matter and i am certainly in no position to judge anothers choices.
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Being an amateur musician/artist/writer is easier than ever nowadays. There are plenty of stable jobs that offer a good amount of flexibility and free time, along with the funds necessary to set up a studio in your house. And thanks to youtube/digital recording/internet publishing anybody can be famous.
Considering that "hitting it big" in the music industry is almost entirely luck-based then it's really hard not to see that anyone who is willing to drop out of college in such pursuits is probably misinformed or delusional.
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EPT
