Perhaps it is being rather bored this spring break, or perhaps it is simply that standard time of the week, that I once again feel the need to A. Think of big ideas and plans for the future, and then B. Get incredibly discouraged and depressed about them.
First of all, let's talk about the dreaming big part. I firmly believe that nearly anything can be achieved if you set your mind to it. Most people never reach their full potential and it is only those who drive themselves farther that will fulfill their dreams. (Very, very few people are lucky, but most people work for what they get). During my junior high musician phase, I had a certain lyric I wrote (that I subsequently plastered everywhere) that went: "you can't live in your dreams tomorrow if you don't dream them today." And to an extent I still hold that angsty saying to be true. If you don't have a dream, then it won't come true. In more practical terms, if you don't have a plan to achieve something, then you won't achieve it. So dream the biggest, craziest dream you can, and then go after it. And be okay when the dream changes, or when you discover it wasn't quite what you wanted, because even in my twenty measly years of existence, my dreams have changed and I have to come to terms with that.
While the dream is in place, you must wait. While every other day I freak myself out by thinking, "Oh man, I only have two years left of school, and I have no plan for supporting myself (much less getting that dream job)," I also have to remind myself that, hey, I'm only twenty, hardly anybody has it figured out by now, and most people don't have it figured out when they're thirty (or forty, or fifty), and that's okay. For myself: it is seriously okay that I don't know how to get to where I want to go. It's okay that I am not qualified enough yet or outgoing enough yet or talented enough yet, because the great thing about the word "yet" is that it is conditional, and only I can remove it from the picture. And that takes time.
And it's okay that these things take time. While I'm waiting, it's important to plan, it's important (and okay!) to make mistakes, it's okay to not be proud of what I do, as long as I learn from those mistakes and keep trying. It's okay for the timing not to be right or for people to say "no" or for my knowledge and equipment to be limited. It's okay to not know everything. And it is certainly okay to fake it until I make it. That's all anyone can do anyways.
It's hard waiting for something that largely depends upon what I do with the time that I have. But coming to the realization that waiting is okay and necessary is the first step to achieving dreams.
