Why Most of Us Will Never Get to Actually Live Our Dreams.
Tags: Dreams, Passion, Hustle, Aspirations, Writing

A simple solution; stop the game of compare and contrast.

As I stride along, in the broad daylight in parallel with every stranger that crosses my path. They believed I was chasing the same dream as they were, racing them with every step forward.

And I started feeling it too. Perhaps that’s where I lost myself. As a young ambitious person, I felt increased pressure whenever I was compared against another person. Be it a classmate, friend or a complete stranger. It was as though, these people had the same goals as I did or that there was only so much that can be achieved and it must be divided amongst all. It felt like there was a benchmark or a limit where the achievements would be at their maximum.

Restricted; exactly how I feel.

Although, it may seem like a catapult in the moment, comparison will only ever limit our potentials.

I dream big, expressing who I truly am but when that clashes with someone else’s big ambition, it becomes less personal and more of a symbol in society. A symbol of, intellect, wealth, or beauty. Ambitions should be much more intimate than social status or just a phase in our journey of life.

When we compare ourselves, ambitions and goals with others in our environments, our dreams slowly fade away into a distant imagination. Whether we all have the same ambitions or the exact habits as one another, there is uniqueness in every living being and so each of our ambitions are rooted much deeper than just this society.

When we are compared with someone, we inevitably begin competing forgetting that these so-called competitors were not in sight when we’d first planned our goals. We’d say we are fighting for our dreams but are our fellow people really the enemies of our ambitions? Or do we use them as another source of motivation to keep us working towards our goals?

Well, if the latter is true, we really aren’t achieving our dreams, we are only competing with like minded people.For something that has no connections with us and so it will not give us that fulfilment in life. Thus, in the end whatever we achieve we won’t be living our dreams.

No matter how similarly we share our dreams with one another, it’s always unique to us, our purposes and our meaning of life are always uniquely customised because of our experiences and the perspectives we have – and we can’t compete on that.

With everyone adorning their social media profiles with their achievements, it’s like we have a constant compass as guide to direct us where we are supposed to be. Brimmed with milestones and medals of success stories social media intensifies the delusion that we are always behind in life. Reinforcing the social pressures that already existed much before the rise of this digital revolution.

Undeniably, social standards have always existed allowing us to measure where we are in life at every stage.

Making our lives much less complicated by giving us structure and standards to strive towards — only these aren’t ours. We are chasing societal standards that don’t represent us but more so our roots. Traits of our ancestors. At a glance, our life appears to be a linear path that we embark upon as we are born into this world and death is on the other end. Sprinkled with certain milestones that we must achieve before this journey concludes.

Just a few examples of what I am actually ranting about…

“you must be married before 30”

“you must graduate before 25”

“become a millionaire before retire”

Truth is, all we need is a singular unfortunate event to give us a reality check on the unrealistic social standards. Just as a few drops of rain in the morning can ruin our schedules or even an invisible particle.

So why do we compare ourselves?

If minute details can alter this structure provided by societal pressures. Then what’s the value of these standards. So just abandon them.

Easier said than done because we as humans have developed ingrained characteristics that force us to adhere to society. Practically, no matter which corner of the world we live in it’s not socially acceptable to run around in public in our natural layers.

Although, we can slowly learn to follow our own standards, create our own goals and achieve them at our own pace — that is much more manageable and fulfilling than achieving someone else’s dreams.

So do something out of the norm, to break this deepened habit of following social norms.