I hate the word realistic. Lately, I have been hearing that word a lot. Being a now rising junior in college, you really begin to start weighing your options and seriously considering your future – I have two years to get my life together before I am thrust out into the real world and expected to do my part as a real life functioning adult in this society.
When considering my future, so many things come to mind – various projects I want to take on in the future, so many achievements I want to earn and reach towards, and what kind of position I can see myself in when thinking about all the opportunity in front of me.
I like to think that everyone has two identities for themselves, one that can be identified as the “unrealistic” – the side that wishes to reach for grandeur and excitement, for their dreams – and the “realistic,” which is the fall back idea, the plan B, the place in life that would satisfy them, but not necessarily excite them.
Often when you try to explain to people your dreams, and the identity you fantasize embodying in the near future, so many people are quick to correct you, encourage you to pursue something more “attainable” or “realistic” out of life. These people can be teachers, parents, siblings, mentors, etc. It doesn’t really matter, but they are EVERYWHERE. I resent that often explaining to someone what excites you and what you dream to accomplish, is often replied with, "But what if that doesn’t work out, what do you want to do then?” It seems that, and this may just be my experience, you are almost pressured to qualify your dreams with a more “realistic” alternative when making conversation about it.
This encouragement to think “realistically” in my opinion can be so damaging. Who’s to say your dreams can’t be accomplished? Who is to say that the fantastical scenarios you create in your head as you lay in bed at night won’t come to be? If not you, then who? I like to look at is as: if you aren’t out there doing it, someone else will.
I guess what I am trying to say is f*ck “realistic.” Do you, and do it well, and nothing and no one will ever be able to stop you. As cheesy as it may sound, believing in yourself and a having little bit of luck is all it seems to take – but unfortunately that also seems to be what people are missing most: faith in themselves. It’s hard to have faith in your dreams when people are always reminding you that realism is more reliable. So screw those people. Do what makes you happy and you can never fail. I try to remind myself of this everyday, and to start everyday embodying that mantra, and I encourage anyone who reads this to do the same.
