Growing up, I used to have big dreams.

Teachers and parents always said you can be anything you want to be: astronaut, singer, model, president—anything. When there are four or five adults trying to drill this dream into your head, you really begin to believe that you can do and be whatever you want, but when you’re sitting at your desk, applying for colleges, you realize that everything you wanted to be is literally just a dream, and they only become that way because you’re too scared to chase them.

I used to love singing. Even now and then, a part of me still loves it. I was always told I was good. I was told that I should sing more, do more, practice more. I should fly faster and higher than everyone else. So, that’s what I did. I sang in choir in elementary school. I got solos. When I was in middle school, I even sang the graduation song in front of the auditorium—doesn’t sound like a lot, but for little, 13-year-old me, the crowd was everything.

I use to be a nervous wreck—I still am—but I tried not to let me nerves get to me. I auditioned for LaGuardia, the “fame school,” and even got in. For the first 14 to 15 years of my life, I dreamed and believed I could sing and do whatever I wanted to.

When I got to LaGuardia, I realized that there were hundreds around me just as talented, if not more. Somewhere along the way, as I entered my senior year, I began to question myself. I had no courage to audition for solos, and I always did my best to stay in the back, sing my notes and never get noticed. When I entered my senior year and it was time to pick colleges, I asked myself: “What do I want to do?”

Right now, I’m an English major, but before changing I was a Forensic Psychology major. Before deciding my first major, I contemplated going to music schools and singing, but something stopped me. My own fears stopped me. I used to contemplate going to school for post-media production, but my fears stopped me from that too. Because I was too scared to take that one step forward; everything I loved to do and could have pursued was pushed to the back of my mind.

I spent all of my high school years comparing myself to others, changing my mindset from “I can do whatever I want” to “Will I be successful if I’m not the best?”

Why did I let go of my dreams? I felt inferior. I felt scared. I felt that if I wasn’t the best, then I could never be the best. I worried that if I couldn’t make it, my future would be shattered, and we’re all constantly told that a career in the arts is one of the most difficult paths to go down. In a way, I still feel the same as I did then. I don’t sing anymore, at least not like I use to. I try not to sing in public, even though I want to. My friends constantly say they miss my singing, and I’m too scared to tell them that I miss it too. I’m sitting now, typing, thinking about my dreams and realizing that if I wasn’t so scared, then maybe, just maybe, I could be who I want to be.