The Problem With Chasing Your Dreams
Ok, it’s possible that I made this title a little overly aggressive with the intent of getting people riled up and ultimately attracting viewership. Sue me. But before you sue me, hear me out. Is chasing one’s dream a bad thing? Well, who knows? My trip down the well of self help has lead me to a point where I’m very reluctant to label anything as good or bad. But is chasing a dream as flowery and straightforward an endeavor as it’s often seen to be? No. Chasing a personal dream can be the most liberating and the most crippling thing somebody can do, regardless of whether or not that dream is realized. As far as I can see, that’s due mostly to three different factors:
1. Attachment
I could talk about attachment for days. I find it to be a disgusting little thing that’s often disguised as a healthy driving force for people. “I’m going to get that dream job not because I want it, because I need it. It’s in my DNA. It’s what I’m born to do. It’s why I’m here. I’m addicted to it”. I used to be seduced by this narrative as well, but now it makes me want to throw up. Being in love with a person or a job or a house or anything is undoubtedly a beautiful thing, but it very silently becomes dangerous when you get to the point that all of your worth is invested in it; when it becomes your identity and you struggle to find happiness without it. We all get attached to different things in different ways and therefore if you think about it, attachment is really the source of all discomfort. Surely the degree can vary by a wide margin as we’re able to move past some uncomfortable feelings rather quickly whereas others can last a lifetime, but ultimately it all boils down to the fact that we get married to a certain result, whatever that may look like. We get attached to arriving to work on time, so traffic upsets us. We get attached to our favorite team winning a championship, so them losing upsets us. The list goes on, and when this concept is applied to a lifelong dream, you can only imagine the amount of attachment that is built up by years of measuring your worth by whether or not you’ve accomplished one thing. Not only does this destroy your sense of self worth by tricking you into thinking that your spirit has no value beyond what you accomplish on the outside, but the longer it goes on for, the harder it is to get away from. The more time you’ve invested into an unhealthy amount of attachment, the stronger it becomes and the more difficult it is to make the healthy choice to leap into a new way of thinking or a new way of life.
2. Change
The most predictable and unpredictable aspect of life is change. It’s predictable in the sense that it’s always coming, in every single moment. It’s unpredictable in the sense that we never know what form it’s going to come in. But rest assured change will be knocking at your door from the inside and the out. How does this relate to chasing a dream? How doesn’t it? Changes that occur naturally in your life will pull you into different directions. You might lose a family member and find that all the hours you spend chasing your own path is taking away from time with your family, the fragility and value of which just became very apparent. You might find the path of your dream to be wildly different than what you expected it to be, and question the fact that your actions aren’t in line with your values after all. Anticipating changes that have not yet come is no reason to not pursue a dream that you are heavily passionate about, but not being willing to embrace changes as they come, even if they stand to rewrite the way you see yourself or the world sees you, can stunt personal growth dramatically. To not embrace change would be the result of…
3. Tunnel Vision
To dedicate oneself so wholly to the pursuit of a certain something can cause us to be blind to all of the other opportunities that the world may offer. Having a healthy balance in this matter can be excruciatingly difficult for people, as there is so much emphasis these days on “Grind, grind, grind. Focus, focus, focus. Don’t let anything get in your way. Eye on the prize”. Commentary like this is intended to highlight the value of commitment, which is of great value. The machine-like workmanship that many choose to take on however, can in some cases turn commitment into enslavement. If this happens, people will see other paths and opportunities, even desirable ones, as parasites; tests of one’s undying devotion to a blueprint they’ve already had laid out for too long. It is key to approach this scenario in a healthy way, because there are two sides of it.
Take the following example into consideration: say someone decides at a young age to be a lawyer. They’re now in their mid twenties, roughly halfway through a journey to even becoming a lawyer, let alone living their career as one. All of a sudden an opportunity comes up to absorb their parents’ company. Our law student, a spry young chap that has been fueled by “never stop working towards what you want”, sees this option and considers it.
Unhealthy responses would be to take over his parents’ company BECAUSE the road to becoming a lawyer is too hard even though he thinks he’s passionate about it.
Or, in falling victim to tunnel vision, to stick with being a lawyer BECAUSE he feels like he’s come all this way even though the idea of working with his parents and staying within the family business is secretly something that would bring him more joy than his idea of being a lawyer once did.
A healthy response to overcoming tunnel vision would be to take over his parents’ company BECAUSE he realizes a change has occurred within him and it’s something he would be happier with; confident enough to move onto the next phase in life and say farewell to who he was many years ago when he wanted to be a lawyer, in spite of the blood, sweat and tears he’s already put in. Or of course to stick with being a lawyer BECAUSE it remains the vocation he cares so much about and he’s comfortable to embrace the struggle that comes with it.
Each of these three hiccups begets the last. They feed off of one another. The ultimate takeaway here, as usual, is to make your inner self your focal point, not all of the alleged wonders that can happen to your outer self. By tailoring yourself to understand that the only reliable joy in this world comes from your perspective rather than your achievements, you will minimize the risk of being yanked into personal and professional paths that are out of touch with who you really are. Again, if your soul is tickled by a certain dream, please go for it. But never allow that dream to become a monster that is bigger than you.
