To the person reading this, are you following your dreams right now? Are you happy with your life? Your friends? Your partner? When you close your eyes, is what you want right in front of you? Or somewhere completely different? If it is somewhere completely different, pick up your things and move. Go to where those things are. If you see yourself building beautiful worlds from words that cloud your thinking, use those words for a living. If you hear things in music, see what flows from your arm to the instrument and what you create. And keep creating. If you see things for film, follow that passion. If your dream is to be sober, and live a healthy life, do it. Don’t settle for what is easy, or what you may think life has planned for you.
You are in control of your own destiny, and someday your heart will stop. You will die, just like I will die, and you will never have dreams again. You’ll never be able to see the way you see again, or think the way you think, the hours you work at a job you hate will mean nothing, just like it would mean nothing if you “failed” trying to follow your dreams. But following a dream is never a failure, it is living. Spending time around a partner who makes you miserable isn’t living, settling on a subject you are studying just because you feel societal pressure to go to college isn’t living. Following your dreams the one time you are here is living. And a dream can absolutely be academic based, as long as it is something you actually care about.
Throughout my life, I felt like I never had the courage to follow my dreams. I went to school for something that felt fine and like a placeholder for my life, but not something I wanted to do. I was in relationships I felt nothing for and stayed because it seemed to be my “life path.” In doing so I felt more and more depressed, and I wished I was far off writing scripts and songs for a career. There were a million reasons for me to stay where I was, but none of them made me happy.
In reality, I was scared to be on my own and made excuses for not trying. I would always justify it with, some people are born to work in those fields, and you aren’t. So I stayed my course, convincing myself it was for the best.
That is a deadly thought, to think some people were born to achieve great things but not yourself. It’s something I struggle with daily, and something that I wholeheartedly believe at times. I think that I am destined to be a failure, and it feels hypocritical talking about following dreams, because I have caused significant damage to mine. It makes it hard at times to feel like it's possible to achieve them. But I am at a point in my life where I am ready to follow them.
But my dreams are different from your dreams. What do yours look like? A dream is never too small, and also never too large. What is your ideal life? And how are you going to make that happen? The thing that sucks about following a dream is that you are the only one who can make it happen. Only you can have the determination, vision, and follow through to make those leaps of faith. Maybe you want to move to far off cities for opportunities but you are scared to be alone so you haven’t. Maybe you are in a relationship that is toxic but you are scared to leave because you have built a life together and you don’t know how to rebuild, maybe you have done things in your past that you regret and are scared they will haunt you forever.
Whatever it is, the excuse isn’t good enough. If you died today, would you be happy with your life? What would you feel like you have accomplished, and did you follow your dream? There are so many humans on this planet, it can feel hard to have a sense of individuality and realize your contribution to this world is unique only to you. The things that are special to you, and what you are good at, are unique to only you. There is only one of your brain that thinks the way yours does, there is only one of your heart that beats the way yours does, there are only two of your hands that hold the warmth yours do, and two of your eyes that see what others can't. And only two of your feet that can take you anywhere. Go be where you are happy, go do what makes you happy. Follow your dreams, no matter what they look like. Be who you truly are. Because someday you will die, just as I will die too
Nick
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In regards to merchandise, we have gotten the test prints in for the 50 limited shirts and I have a meeting with my team tomorrow about them, so I hope to have more information about that this week as well. I will also be replying to the messages my team has sent me starting tomorrow. Thank you to anyone who has written in, I value the time you take to reach out.