Every Dream Can't Come True

Growing up we are all told of these huge opportunities and how we can do everything. I think I've started to take this too literally and feel is a requirement to do everything. I put an unrealistic amount of pressure on myself to accomplish everything, without priority, to prove every negative person wrong, no matter the cost, and to be successful. I'm finally getting my dose of reality.

I've started having lunch at the park. Normally, I'll just eat in the kitchen at my office, but sometimes I feel too surrounded and need some space to breath. The park has lots of space. I'm starting to discover that my thought need a lot of space to develop. I'm constantly thinking, about everything, but in the rush of life my thoughts never find a conclusion. Apparently I'm much nicer and more fun to be around when I'm not so in my head trying to figure things out.

Back to lunch. So I was sitting at the park in 90 degree weather eating my Wendy's, when I realized I needed to finish my thought process on the things I want out of life. In my need to accomplish everything, I've researched what it would take for every dream I've ever had to come true. Just career wise, I want to be a financial planner (which I am), an air traffic controller, a hedge fund manager, a pilot, a business owner, a ER doctor, a college counselor, a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, an Olympic athlete, a cruise line director, and the list goes on for 13 more professions. To just get the education that is required I'd need 15 more years of school. Assuming I make it through that, I also need about 3 years of experience in each area, 66 years. I'd be 104 before I could actually be considered above entry level. Then, if I factor in getting married, having a kid, hobbies, community service, and a small social life. I need there to be 288 hours in a day to meet my goal of being 'successful' by the age of 30.

It did take me a while to accept the fact that this is literally impossible. But I've come to terms with it now. So I'm at a crossroad, what to give up and what to pursue. I'm not really the hoarder type. I really enjoy purging my house and throwing too many things away so I have to continually buy the same thing over and over. However, it is extremely difficult for me to give dreams up, and extremely necessary. All the business articles I read say that if I take on too many things, then I need to prioritize by importance on what I can actually get done.

We really can accomplish anything that we want. I truly believe that. But we just can't accomplish everything. Just like my wish list on iTunes, we have to prioritize the most important and impactful dreams and bite off only twice as much as we can chew (instead of 288 times as much).