The persuit of dreams

I want to dive into something that we’ve experienced and possibly battled with from the time we understood the requirements of the world around us. I want us to talk about conforming, what it means and why we choose to do it in different life stages.

Conform: to comply with set standards ( Don’t ask me who set them I also don’t know), laws or rules. It also means to behave according to socially acceptable conventions or standards.

Isn’t it just tempting to fit in and not stand out? Wouldn’t it be lovely to travel the road many have traveled and find yourself accepted to all those around you, to be accepted by friends, family, workplace, school and religious organisations? I reckon its a battle we fight fought during our schooling career that if not conquered overflows into the rest of our lives. We often thought what made us the same is what made us extraordinary until we discovered there is no pleasing everyone.

We all have an idea of what conforming is but I want to talk about the type of conforming that makes us run away from our dream because they are not traditional- running away from starting a business, exhibiting the arts, writing a book, staying unmarried, escaping the college route or even staying at your parents house longer than usual. It is because of the desire to conform to a standard we don’t know who set that we have the fear of the unknown. We fear being the first or one of the few. we fear starting the business or being an artist or even an athlete because I won’t conform to the 9 to 5, we stay in toxic relationships in order to conform to the love lives here epidemic (that was a joke)

Note: There is nothing wrong with living a life considered tradiotional, the problem comes when it is made the standard for an entire human race especially when all humans are different from each other, the problem comes when you choke your own dreams, journey and story just because you fear setting you own path. Nothing wrong with a daily job, being married or even conforming to a gender .

We are in an era of breaking stereotypes, boundaries and glass ceilings. We are breaking normal. The problem with passion is that it never leaves you. You will find a 70 year old talking about the opportunities they never took and chances they let slide because of the fear of the unknown (its not known because everyone wanted to conform). Passion won’t leave you instead it will transform into regret.

I would love to tell you that there is safety in breaking normal, I would love to tell you that it will be emotionally inexpensive to set into new ventures. I would love to tell you that you will have the support of everyone but unfortunately I can’t tell you that but what I can tell you is it would cost you more to ignore your dreams than to chase them.

Random question: why do you think people are jealous of individuals who are trail blazers, individuals who forge new journeys?

Remember when I said the passion never dies? that’s your answer right there! When we don’t have enough faith in our abilities to peruse our dreams until the passion turns into regret we become envious of all those who chase their’s because we know that they will live their dreams eventually and we can’t turn back time to live ours.

I can only wish you all the best in going on new frontiers.