Hah the word reality bewilders me. Too many times have I been scoffed at, raised eye'd at, laughed at. Too many times have I been called 'cute' when I share my dreams or been given the most patronising looks as if I were the craziest person they have met. Too many times has this happened because my dreams don't fit in with the lines of what society deems to be 'reality'. TOO many times because I DARE to DREAM.
When I was little, many a times I was asked what I wanted to be when I was older. As I am sure you were too. Now I'm pretty sure I went through many options of careers when I was younger, in fact I remember thinking I'd be able to go on The X factor one day, after watching Leona Lewis's win. Which I admit was a very far fetched dream because I can't sing. Next I wanted to be a primary school teacher, I remember dressing up on 'what do you want to be when your older' day in year 4 as a teacher and my older sister created a register for me to take with all my peers names on it; when my teacher took the register that morning I took mine out too, only once my teacher realised I had a fake one she let me take the real register. Not going to lie, probably the best day out of my primary school career.
As I got older my aspirations started to change, I got quite serious about becoming a child psychologist as I really wanted to help people and I love giving advice however, I soon lost interest when I realised how heavy the job would get on a day to day basis. Although, I'm sure highly rewarding. And then my true dream started to grow, becoming a makeup artist, now I'm not saying that at the age of 12 I knew then and there that being a makeup artist was what I wanted to do. In fact I didn't really realise that a job like that existed but what grasped my imagination was in fact being in awe of the prosthetics on programmes such as holby city, and I could never quite get through a whole film without noticing some sort of makeup or special fx feature that didn't blow my mind. That interest and that passion is what has transformed in to my dream and my future reality. I don't view it as a job, I don't view it as a career. Its my future, its going to be my way of life.
My point of rambling on about this is that from day one of school it is drilled in to us to do well, to get good results, and good results equals a high paying, respectable job. We are locked in to a system of school, college, uni, job, retirement. Which is fine but I can't help but think that school drills in to us that our aspirations have to be practical. In fact due to be somewhat a high achiever at school I felt embarrassed to let my peers and teacher know that makeup was my future due to the stereotypes that go along with it.
Practicality and what is deemed to be reality destroys to many peoples dreams, at school instead of asking us 'what do you want to be?' or 'what do you want to do?' in the future, why don't they ask us 'what do you want your future to look like?' Why don't they embrace the fact that some people want careers that are slightly different, or that some people will want to travel for the rest of their life, or some people will want to be a stay at home parent. Why don't they embrace the idea that the 9-5 way of life isn't everyones cups of tea. Some people will love the 9-5 life, and some people its not for them. It should be more accepting that whatever YOU want for YOUR life is what YOU should have as long as you provide that.
Dream what you want to dream, whether its career orientated, whether you want to be an entrepreneur, a teacher , a vet, a doctor, a manager, or whether its more personal and its family orientated dream or if you want travel, or if its a mixture of both and you dream to have it all, Whatever you dream no matter what it is Don't let any body tell you its not achievable don't let anybody tell you that ' reality' isn't like that.
No dream is smaller or more grand then the next. No if you aspire for your life to be a certain way, that one dream can be the beacon of light that keeps you going, keeps you wanting more for yourself and makes you take control of your life.
So my point for this post is, no matter what your dream is, no matter how abstract or non abstract it may be, no matter how risky or non risky it is. Its your dream and thats important. You should be allowed to dream it and do everything in your power to achieve it. You take control and don't let anybody damage that for you.
So please next time you hear someone's dream, no matter what that dream is. Don't laugh, don't scoff, don't belittle and don't mock. Everyone starts from somewhere, take the legend makeup artists Bobbi Brown and Charlotte Tilbury; they started as ordinary girls and grew amazing businesses and yes thats their REALITY. That will be mine too.
Stop using the word reality negatively, stop trying to bring people 'back down to earth'. You can make your dream a reality.
And its never too late to achieve those dreams! Life it too short not to do what you want.
Thank you for reading this post and I hope its inspired you to make your dreams your reality.
Lots of Love
Liv x
