Dreams come true, to some extent.

When we are children, we have certain expectations of life – dreams and visions that we would love to come true, and we have a lot of belief that everything will work out exactly the way we want it to, in right time.

Then we are teenagers and we become less optimistic about it all. We question life more, realizing that some of it will certainly disappoint us. We lose some hope about it all.

In our mid twenties, we start to feel pressure. Wait, why haven’t I achieved some of those things that I have wanted to achieve since I was a child? I have dealt with disappointment and lessons, I have lost some hope, but why did I give up? I still have a right to dream. At that point the feeling that we have not done enough – settles in. It’s the feeling of being mediocre in a life that we will only live through once.

I’ve made some wrong decisions in my life. I messed around in college and didn’t finish the education I dreamt of. Then I got the first job I could get – just so I would have money to live. Then I changed that job, because I had nothing left to learn there. Then I went through one of the hardest challenges in my life, where I hated every day when I had to get up to go to work – not even realizing how incredibly miserable I was till the very day when I finally left.

Paralyzed by fear that I do not deserve better … I simply grew accustomed to my life, hoping that I can find joy elsewhere, if not in a job.

Fear is just the worst thing that can happen to you – it can stop you from growing and ruin opportunities for you. It’s so much easier for me to understand it now: why so many people stay in horrible jobs that mistreat them. I was punishing myself for not achieving more in my life. So I stopped fighting for a better opportunity.

But luckily something finally clicked, at some point. I realized I was miserable. More so, I realized I cannot keep on being miserable for the next 50 years. And even though I was paralyzed by fear, and paralyzed by the fact that I have disappointed the little me – I also realized I still have time to inspire the little me, as well.

I have now been working in the field I have always wanted to work in – for the past two months. It has felt unreal all this time. Unreal that I wake up not dreading the day I have ahead of me. Wake up being excited to learn. Wake up being excited to see the people I work with. And I wake up excited that, to some extent, I now get the opportunity to show the little me: dreams come true, sometimes.