I always felt like I’m aiming too high, to the point of feeling that I’m aiming for something unreachable. And after years of trying to reach “the unreachable”, as I was calling my dream, and years of waiting for support from people around me and not receiving it, I just gave up. (Note to self: you don’t need to wait for anyone’s support because your dream doesn’t depend on it.) I told myself that I am indeed aiming for the unreachable, and the nihilist thought of “why am I even trying anyway?” guided me into giving up.

It didn’t sound so bad, because in the end, I was only giving up on something I could not achieve, so it all boiled down to giving up on a pointless struggle and a waste of energy. Sounds quite right, comforting and comfortable, doesn’t it?

I gave up on my crazy dream and tried to create other dreams, smaller and more achievable ones. More like goals, or as I would call them now “fake goals.” And it was great, it felt great, because I was pursuing achievable goals that were fulfilling. And I kept on creating even more goals, and spreading them all on a spider web master plan meant to fulfill me and turn me into my most successful self. And yes, sometimes I was thinking about “the dream”, but I was pushing it down and telling myself it was just a pointless struggle with no happy ending. Afterall, I was at peace, and somehow resigned to the idea that I gave up on it, that I made the right choice and I was doing what I had to do.

But I was wrong. I was just lost because I gave up on my path, and I was desperately trying to find a new one somehow, while my real dream was haunting me and I was trying to push it down. No matter how many goals I was creating, no matter how excited I was for every project I had the chance to work on, I had weekly reminders about the path I gave up on. And I functioned like this for around five years. I told myself maybe it’s normal… maybe it’s just some kind of a sad story, just like the stories we hear about old people, married, with children and grandchildren, but still regretting they gave up on the love of their life from when they were young. And I thought to myself that this comparison is way too sad, and quite scary, because it involves living with regret for the rest of your life, unless you manage to really take responsibility for your decisions. And the reason I couldn’t take responsibility was the fact that it wasn’t really a decision. I didn’t ask myself “yes or no?”, I just concluded at that point that it’s impossible. And looking back, it wasn’t impossible at all, because I could see others making it… which means I just labeled my dream as “impossible for me” because I lacked the patience and discipline to pursue it. And because I was too young to understand the steps I had to take towards my goal, or how, as well. I was too excited and impatient to follow my dream step by step and “hustle” (I heard this is the trendiest solution right now) and I just assumed it’s impossible because I couldn’t see the results overnight. And that’s stupid and naive.

One of the weirdest feelings I ever had in the last five years of my life was the feeling that I’m guided towards something, but I keep drifting apart from that certain something. So, consequently, I have to be guided back. It’s like I’m in a place, living, doing my stuff, and all of a sudden, I’m being picked up by a huge hand and moved to another place in some specific circumstances. I end up there, and slowly, somehow without realising, leave that place and go to another one. And as I’m in that new found place, living and doing my stuff again, I get picked up once more and I’m being moved to the place and the circumstances I was left in last time. And so on. It’s kinda like I’m a Sim in “The Sims”, and the player is trying to give me a specific task, but I keep getting sidetracked. While this feeling was rare at first, in the past year it’s been happening more and more often, and what fascinates me about this feeling is that the place and circumstances I’m being moved in, feel right. They feel right because I feel like that’s where I belong. And that place is where I last abandoned my dream. And the circumstances are the things that made me happy and made me create my dream in the first place. 

I’ve reached a point in my life where I realised all the “so many things I want to do” and all the goals I enthusiastically created were just a temporary solution due to me feeling purposeless, and I knew I had to do something, anything… at least something to make a living out of. I’ve also reached a point in my life where I know I have to get out of my comfort zone, deal with my dream and know I have to take a leap of faith towards it, just like I should’ve done many years ago.

To my younger self, when I just discovered my dream,

Don’t panic, we’ll get there!