As we grow up, and start to question what we want to do with our lives—how we want to spend it to the best of our abilities—we begin to see the misconceptions, the lies, and the double standards.

Teachers, family, friends, random strangers, celebrities—they all tell us different things. One says, “be who you want to be, be original. Don’t live like everyone else.” Another one continues, “but make sure you’re married by 28, with 2.4 kids, a white picket fence that surrounds a yard, and a 9 to 5 job—even if that’s not what you want.” Then another one pops in and adds, “you’re beautiful just the way you are. Don’t change a thing.” But their ideas are challenged by the last one who states, “but change the way you look. You can always improve yourself. You can always look better, be better than what you are now.”

All of these people who surround us make us question everyday what we want to do with our lives, how we want to appear to others. They tell us to be different, but then they say, “but be less different than you should be, so you still have a fallback plan if you fail—because you’ll probably fail.” They want us to dream big, but small enough to where we might actually make it in the world.

I’m tired of people telling me, and everyone, else how to live their lives. I have this professor who makes us question our majors and what we want out of life, but he does it in a way that only makes us want to change our plans, not for the better, but for the worse. He will begin class and ask us where we want to be in ten years, and once we tell him our grandiose dream, he tears it down. He asks, “but what about a family? Kids? Your 401k? Insurance? How will you afford a life you want with that kind of dream?” And I get why he asks the questions. He wants us to follow what we want to do, but make sure it’s the best path for us. But I sit there listening and I realize his questions only pertain to what society deems as the American Dream. A family, a spouse, a 9 to 5 job—they all fall under what we classify as the normal American Dream. Yes, throughout the years it has changed.

We can live the American Dream of wanderlust, or adventure. We could be a photographer travelling the world—but right now, when I say, “American Dream,” I mean the one we all deep, down believe is that dream. The one that’s been alive since 1407 because that’s how people have lived for centuries.

So when my professor continues to berate us on what we want to do with our lives I just sit there thinking maybe it’s what he wants out of life, but it’s not what I want. Maybe he wants a family, a place to call home, a safe environment where he doesn’t have to worry about the future because he has a savings account, he has a 401k that will set him up for old age. And he tells us these things because he wants us to be like him, to follow his expectations. He wants us to question ourselves, and we let people like him do that to us because he has some sort of authority over us. He wears the title of professor, so we automatically assume he knows what he is talking about. He can question us, but we cannot question him. Why would we want to? He’s a professor after all, he knows everything. We let people like him, with some sort of dominance over us, challenge our goals in life. They’re the ones who make a girl with the dream of being one of only few female directors change their plans. They tell her to be an engineer because she cannot go wrong in that field. So she does because people tell her to. And once she graduates with a degree she never wanted, she lives the life everyone else wants for her. By her early 30s’ she has a family, a steady career she hates, and a life she never wanted. So she challenges her life. She challenges her choices. She changes what she has because it’s something she never wanted. She goes back to school to get that degree, to be someone with a dream. She takes back what everyone told her to do, and she does what SHE wants to do. She becomes one of the few female directors. She wins an Oscar. She changes history. She became who she always wanted to be, just a little bit late in the game due to high and mighty people telling her to live a solid, dependable life that has no real excitement in it.

So for everyone out there who has ever had a passion, who has ever dreamed about something unconventional, something that will make you happy—then by all means, DO IT. Not because I’m telling you, but because that’s what you’ve always wanted. It’s the idea in the back of your mind that has always been there, but has never come forth as reality because you tell yourself you could never have that. You can, we all can. Just try.