“This is real, this is me”
By: Ti'Ani Thomas
Tags: YouTube, Ikigai, Introduction, Dreams, Advice

Now I know what you’re thinking, “how cliche”. Yes, I chose a Camp Rock lyric as my title, but only because it is so relatable. I grew up watching Disney, well when my family could afford it, but it was the one channel that always seemed to turn dreams into reality. As a kid, I always had dreams but none of them were ever related to what I want to do today. What is that you wonder? Well, I want to explore the magical field of television productions. Exciting, right?

Anyway, my name is Ti’Ani Thomas and I am currently majoring in “Television and Digital Media” at Montclair State University. You already know that I didn’t dream of this as a kid. So when did I actually come to the realization that I wanted to do this? In all honesty, it took a lot of trial and error and broken dreams.

Picking something and sticking with it, was definitely not my specialty growing up. Almost every week or so I had a new dream or hobby. This carried on with me until middle school. That was the one period of my life where I often felt alone and tried to fit in. My peers at that time already knew what they wanted to do, whereas I couldn’t even think of something I would be good at or enjoy doing. At one point I considered being an artist, but no matter how hard I tried, my artwork wasn’t as creative compared to others. Then for at least a year, I was set on being a fashion designer. I really thought that was the right path for me.

I begged my grandmother to spend a lot of her retirement money on a Brother sewing machine. Once she finally agreed, I started making trips to the fabric store to get supplies and I even watched YouTube videos back to back about sewing. To top it off, I got into watching Project Runway. No one could have even stopped my drive to achieve that dream. But with every dream comes that dark cloud of realization.

One day I had a lot of free time on my hands and decided to make my first ever creation, a circle skirt. I looked up a video and everything to try and get the measurements and cutting right. Hours later, I had an incomplete skirt and a lot of self-doubt. I was back to square one, but I had given up. My will to dream died that day.

Instead of dreaming, I had focused on things I loved to do in my spare time, like making YouTube videos.

My first scripted skit

I was given a camcorder for Christmas and I would just make videos for fun hoping to be like one of my favorites at that time, Nigahiga. Never did I ever think to work in the television field until I visited high schools. Once I learned that there were TV production programs in most of them, that’s when I realized I could actually do what I love.

So what’s the point of my story? Well, it takes a lot of trials and errors to discover what you truly want to do in life. You can do what gets you the most wealth, status, or power, but it won’t matter if it doesn’t make you happy in the end. I recently quit my job to focus on school and to try and keep my dream alive by working on it. Yes, I was earning money, but it made me depressed going there every day. Instead, I joined one of those delivery apps so I can work on my own time and still have time to do what I love, making videos.

In the end, I know it will all be worth it.