Although the thought of turning 21 is exciting for most 20 year olds, it has only jarred my thoughts about my future more and more recently. While I am excited to see what this year holds for me, I sometimes feel as though I am not ready for the big 2-1. My friends tell me it’s silly to get nervous about turning 21, it’s supposed to be a fun year, but for me it seems as though this is the year that I’m supposed to somehow turn into an adult. I’ve started to think about where I want to live after college, where I might like to work, even how I might want to start investing my money. Although I know that this is far reaching, it is important to think about these things!! However, after watching (yet again) Casey Neistat’s most recent vlog, I was reminded that dreams and reality can act as one entity instead of two.

As I am becoming closer and closer to graduating, I find myself concentrating more on reality than my dreams. It is sometimes scary to think about how I might manage on my own after college, the mortgage I’m going to have to take out, the car I’m going to have to buy, the job I’m going to need to find. These things make me wonder how I’m going to make ends meet and I’m only a college student! However, before all of that, I need to graduate and work hard until that point.

I was reminded today that I sometimes think too much about the reality of my life, rather than all of the dreams that I am working so hard to accomplish. As we get older, reality begins to take a back seat to our dreams. As reality has started to sink in, my dreams have become more and more distant, and that is not ok. I’ve known for a long time what I wanted to be and do with my life, and to let that slip away would be a shame for anybody willing to achieve high life goals. Casey states that “your ambitions, your goals in life, are limited only by your imagination,” and “only imagination fuels your life ambitions.” While the reality of daily life often feels exhausting and trying, if we can manage to remember why it is that we are pushing ourselves so hard, it will become easier to get through the struggle of our everyday reality.

“Fear of failure gets in the way of perusing our passion.” In a sense I think Casey is referencing Babe Ruth's idea that the failure of striking out should never keep you from playing the game. And Babe Ruth doesn’t lie. This is not to say that you shouldn’t have a little bit of fear in trying to achieve your dreams, but there shouldn’t ever be fear enough to keep you from aiming high. I often find that I am overwhelmed by so many things at once that it seems as though I will not be able to accomplish even one thing on my list. If you’re anything like me, your friends can clearly see this in you too. Luckily, mine have taught me that “if you look at all your marbles at one time, you see how big of an obstacle you have, just look at one marble at a time.” (Aaron Gaskell). And for this, it is ok to sometimes put your dreams in the backseat for a little bit, if that means achieving smaller goals to work up to your ultimate passion. However, it is important to make promises to yourself that you will never let go of these dreams. Even at your lowest they should always be circulating in the back of your head.

So, while it may seem like your reality and your dreams are essentially water and oil right now, you will reach a point where they are acting as one. It all starts with the everyday reality. If we continue to push through that daily “struggle,” this separation will only become smaller and smaller.