Update on flying the societal coop:
Things are going pretty dang well. I'm kicking butt at my job, and accordingly have been given an opportunity to intern in the office of the company I work for. Internships, in the words of my boss, are offered only to people who they are already interested in hiring, rather than traditional internships where you get a few months and then go on your way.
So, let's rewind a few months: I decided not to go to college, and everyone started writing eulogies in case they were selected to preside over my imminent funeral. "He was full of life, but just so dumb to try and do it his own way."..."He liked to play drums, but in the end, his inability to be content with the normal rhythm of life beat him to death."..."He was a lout who was too lazy to pursue a 9-5 job."
All of these good points, and all of them a bit underhanded or downright transparently bitter.
This post is inspired by two things: A.) My satisfaction at discovering I may be right about deciding not to go to college (by this I mean the right decision for ME, not for everyone. And of course I'd be satisfied to discover I didn't make a decision that threw my life down the tubes as everyone theorized, so it isn't just childish satisfaction at knowing I was right...but there is a little bit of that mixed in), and B.) My desire to point out to others that you can go and do it your own way. Some people I've talked to have said things like "You're SOOOO lucky", and to them I say, "No I'm not. I took a chance on life instead of playing it safe (again, not a blanket statement about all college students playing it safe, but had I continued at college I would have been playing it safe rather than going for my personal goals), I busted my tail for the work given to me and jumped on opportunities to take on more, I worked hard to learn the skills I need to do my job to the best of my ability, and I earned what has been given to me."
So, to summarize point B: If you have a dream that does not coincide with your current path, go do it. Because when you go for it with everything you've got, opportunities are more likely to present themselves. And if you give those opportunities your all, things happen. It isn't some game of roulette, it isn't some stroke of fate, it comes down to you working hard. It's like that for anything. If you aspire to be a doctor but stumble through college in a 40-proof daze, you're not going to reach your goal. If your dream is 'x', 'y' doesn't matter as long as you pursue 'x' passionately.
Although I suck at math and science and am volumes more comfortable with things that can be tied to emotion, like writing, music, art in general, etc., I find that I'm very analytical. Like, when I would co-write a song with old bandmates, I would ask questions almost like the scientific method: What do we want to say here? What are some common thoughts associated with these emotions? And then I'd write it down in a list form. I think the reason I do things this way is because complex things are always just a composite of many simple things.
So if your dream is 'x', you'll find that pursuing it passionately and presents opportunities that fill in the 'y's, but for demonstration's sake, I'll fill in a short and incomplete list.
X = own a designer fashion line
Y's
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1.) Hone your skills at designing and producing clothes.
2.) Find ANY AND ALL opportunities to experience the industry. (The retail environment, fashion events, TV shows, books, websites)
3.) Hone your business skills according to what you see in step 2.
4.) Assert yourself into more active roles in the clothing industry (take a job managing a boutique's selection, take samples of your work to fashion conferences, search the fashion industry for internships and opportunities)
5.) If this line of work needs further education, get it.
Sure, most of those are easier said than done, but sitting here griping about the difficulty will get you nowhere. And make note that many dreams do necessitate a college degree or further education...I'm not against college, I'm against people going just because they feel they have to. If your dream includes it, do it. You'd be dumb to not do it.
For me, my dream is to do something with music. Play it, be in the business of it, pretty much anything. My list is rather similar to the example list above. Immersing myself in a band and how a band operates is what lead me to meet our band manager, who introduced me to my current workplace and helped me get a job there. I've been honing my skills and opportunities are presenting themselves. It's really not complicated. If you want something bad enough, and put that desire into ACTION (Important: Wanting a pony reallll bad never helped a little girl get a pony; saving money, clearing brush where a stable could go, learning the rules of horse ownership...now we're talking serious business), things are a helluva lot more likely to happen than if you sit and wish.
And THAT brings me to the title of this blog. All you have to do is more than drea-ea-ea-ea-eam. You have to go for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il8mkeCuTuU
