5 Reasons to Follow Your Dreams Even if They Are "Impractical"

Today I am boldly and fully following my dreams to enter academia and pursue entrepreneurship but it has been a journey to get to this point. 

My parents are Caribbean immigrants. And anybody familiar with Caribbean immigrant culture knows about the pressure put on children to educationally and particularly--economically--succeed. After all, your parents didn't immigrate to the 'Land of the Free' for nothing!

For me, the problem was that I never really wanted to do anything that was considered responsible, practical, or lucrative by my parent's standards. I didn't want to go into the sciences or medicine or law or accounting. I wanted to write and I also enjoyed tutoring and teaching. 

I struggled with guilt for awhile because I come from a low income family and I felt like I had no right to do what was best for me if it wasn't also the immediately best thing for my family. I also struggled with a lack of support as I transitioned from pretending to want to go to law school to being honest about the fact that I wasn't going. 

But these are the 5 reasons why I pushed through in spite of the challenges.

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1. I am no good to anybody when I am not good to myself. 

In college, I was very depressed. I felt like everything I was doing was meaningless because it wasn't what I really wanted to do. Moreover, I felt like I had no space in my life to truly dedicate to what I wanted to do. 

I was not my best self at this time and it impacted my relationships and my view of myself. I felt creatively stymied and I felt like everything I truly wanted was on hold indefinitely.

So when I graduated and I went abroad to England to do my Master's, I prioritized taking care of myself emotionally and spiritually. Part of that was staying true to my dreams and what I wanted to do. I started my business, dedicated a lot of time to writing and reading, and took time to be truly intellectually curious.

Now I have a lot more to give to others because my spirit is full. 

2. Passion makes for success. 

When you're really passionate about something--when you love it for its own sake--then you're going to be better at what you do than somebody without that passion. That in turn will make you more competitive at what you do. 

As an example, I adore graduate school. Not many people can say that but I genuinely enjoy all of my readings and working on my essays and my dissertation. Due to this, it wasn't hard for me to buckle down and get to work and that resulted in great grades and favorable opinions from my professors. 

Passion translates to more effort, longer nights, and more ingenuity. It also makes you more ambitious. 

3. Ambition makes money. 

When you're working on something that you love, you're naturally more hungry to see it succeed and you make more sacrifices and work harder to see that success happen. 

When I started Mertina Writing Services, I was hungry to get clients and so I worked hard to let people know about my business and I worked hard to present myself in a professional manner. I celebrated my businesses' victories while also never being satisfied. I have never stopped trying to expand my business. 

4. There are many paths to success and financial security. 

If you asked my parents a few years ago, the only way to make money was to become a lawyer, doctor, accountant, or engineer. They were convinced that I was throwing my life and potential away by studying literature on the graduate level. 

But thankfully, life isn't so black and white.

There are people who do everything the "right" way and are never successful or financially secure. Maybe due to the volatile nature of the economy and job market or maybe because they were never truly good at the path they pursued.

And likewise, there are people who pursue music, art, writing, cooking, entrepreneurship, and etc and make a good living for themselves while also doing what they love. 

There's no guarentee in life that financial security will be yours so you might as well do what's on your heart and make the most of it financially. 

5. Everybody deserves the chance to have a career that is personally fulfilling. 

"Everybody" includes the low income kids, the college dropouts,  and the people who struggled finding their passion but found it all of a sudden and now want to pursue it. 

Nobody deserves to be circumscribed in terms of what they feel they can do and accomplish.

I used to feel like I "had" to do what I didn't want to do because it was what I "needed" to do. But then I realized that I don't "need" to do anything but take care of myself financially, help my community, and leave a legacy. And there's nothing in those requirements that remands me to a particular career or course of study. 

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Sometimes people think they have our best interest at heart when they tell us to dream smaller and more practically, but really they're limiting us and encouraging us to not live up to our full potential. 

It's a scary thing to ignore naysayers and follow an "impractical" dream but I believe that it's worth it. And it's worth will show sooner than later.