How to Follow Your Dreams (Without Putting Too Much Pressure on Yourself or Feeling Guilty)

Should you follow your dream?

In my circle, the default answer is yes, but should it be? It’s easy to preach from my ivory tower and tell you how to live your life. It’s easy enough to tell you to go on your grand adventure, find freedom, and discover your passion.

But how realistic is this?

You have a lot of variables to worry about. There’s the whole having to eat and needing shelter thing. You have bills, debt, healthcare issues to consider, the whole nine.

Maybe you shouldn’t start a band and go on a dive bar tour when you have three young children. Perhaps being a c-suite executive makes more sense for your life than becoming an artist.

You don’t need to achieve some outlandish dream to be happy. You could decide to be happy right now simply because you’re alive. I do genuinely buy the argument that ambition can turn you into a slave and that all worldly success is meaningless. I don’t accept it, but I get it.

If you do follow your dream, there’s no guarantee you’ll be successful and even if you do, that success might not, and probably won’t, fill a void for you.