Fighting for your dream

Lost without a dream

I spent most of my life searching for my dream and always feeling incomplete without it.

When I was younger, I imaged myself doing something special, audacious, and meaningful with my life, but I could never decide on what that thing should be.

I saw friends go off to college and pursue dreams of becoming doctors, lawyers, veterinarians, and entrepreneurs. I had other friends go travelling and pursue dreams of discovering the world.

I, on the other hand, stayed behind. I watched from afar and envied their focus and dedication to their purpose which obviously brought them so much joy.

I drifted through my 20s and although it was not without some adventures, I still always felt lost without something to be driving towards.

Last year, after 31 years of my life, countless missed opportunities and the continued failure to commit, I finally found what I had been searching for.

I discovered my dream.

Living the dream and loving your life

If you've ever found something that connects with you at your very core, that gets you excited when you get up in the morning and keeps you up at night when you should be asleep, then you know how special it is to have discovered your dream.

For me, Scale My Life.

For the first time in my life, I was feeling complete. I was pursuing my passions, experiencing new things and challenging myself mentally, physically and creatively.

I was finally living my life how I had always imagined it should be and I was building it myself.

Of course, things were not always easy, in fact, sometimes things were brutally hard, but at the end of the day, no matter how hard things got, I knew, deep in my soul, that what I was doing was worth the pain.

Facing the moment of truth

After a whole year of living my dream, I found myself at a crossroad. My dream and I were faced with a crushing battle with reality.

Although I loved the life that I had been living, I was faced with the real fact that it was not a sustainable life to continue living. 

I was left with the toughest decision I have ever had to make. To give up on my dream and go back to a safer, realistic life, or to be bold and strive for a life few have been able to attain. 

I will admit, I was afraid of this reality. I wanted to risk it all and pursue my passions, but the odds of turning this project into a reality are astronomically against me.

For a long time, I sat on the fence as I tried to decide how I would make things work yet everything I came up with just didn't seem right.

Finally, a good friend gave me a hard truth. He said, "It not good enough just to have a dream, you need to be able to fight to make that dream come true."

You only fail when you stop trying

In this moment, I realized what I needed to do. 

I had found my dream, but it was up to me to make it come true.

I decided right there that I wasn't going to let anything hold me back. I wouldn't let everything I had worked so hard to achieve and everything that gave my life meaning slip away just because I was afraid of what would happen if I failed.

This feeling was liberating. No longer would I half-commit to this vision of my life, I would invest everything into making it come true. 

I'm sure this journey will be tough, and I know the challenge may seem impossible, but at the end of the day, I know that the pursuit of seeking an impossible life will be far more rewarding than settling for a half filled one.

Please follow my journey as I attempt to go "all in" to follow my dreams and live a life that I believe to be worth living.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.