When I was in first grade, I dreamed of having a wife and a family. For years I wondered where my wife was and what our life would be like together. Day after day I searched in the world to see if I would find her. 12 years later at college, I had given up my dream and replaced it with just wanting to get laid for most of the rest of my adult life.
12 more years later I realized I was so close to my original childhood dream of having a family and that I was also on the edge of giving up not only that dream but my entire life. I had the shocking realization that I had been stuck in so much self-pity that I would not reach my dreams that I had barely noticed they were literally right in front of me and I was about to give them away. 3 years after that I am grateful that everything I dreamed of as a child is a reality and I consistently appreciate that each day while accepting some day I will not remember any of this.
The question is how do we persist when making our dreams real looks impossible or unlikely? What is the bigger barrier that gets in the way? How can we look at that and get out of our own way today? I hope sharing this story originally inspired by a video I filmed on vacation while visiting my family in Michigan. To make the video which contains the majority of the text for this post, I just walked into a conference room at the embassy suites where my wife, daughter, and I were staying. No one told me I could be there or anything, but I just walked in and set my camera up and I'm filming a video.
Would you join me in uncovering my truth of the bigger obstacle to my dreams coming true by reading this post or watching the video of day 163 of Happier People Podcast on YouTube because sharing my journey may help us help each other?
Enter the edited original video transcript ...
What stops us from trying to follow our dreams?
What I realized today is that the idea of doing it perfect is what stops me from going after my dreams, especially if I think other people are doing it perfect.
Well, if someone else who had more subscribers or better video quality, would they just go into a hotel conference room and just sit down at a table, and film a video?
I don't know.
What stops us from trying to go after our dreams is that we think there's this picture of perfect and that we can't possibly live up to it. If you think the position I'm in is one that you might like to get to, or if it's similar to what you might like to get to in the sense that you've given me the creative freedom to just do whatever I want, the truth is that no one's doing it perfectly.
The news stations are not making perfect videos by any means. The big YouTubers or Facebook video guys, or whatever you're impressed with, are not doing it perfectly and the truth is that no one really knows what they're doing either. Once you realize that, it's really inspiring to give your shot at it. I made a video the other day predicting cryptocurrency prices. I don't know what I'm doing. I just guessed and that's what others are doing. Other people are just guessing. That video and the one after it now have hundreds of thousands of views which six years ago was a complete fantasy.
Now, whether you're guessing involves looking at data or involves talking to people, or involves trusting your gut, it's all really just guessing. Now, this may offend because if you've premised not following your dreams on the assumption that other people know what they're doing, other people are doing it perfect or pretty close to perfect, something may be that's unachievable on a personal level. If you've premised not following your dreams at that, like I'm just going to sit at home and not even try to follow my dreams, then it can be offensive to hear the truth essentially.
No one knows what they're doing or at least no one that I've seen really knows what they're doing in the future in the big picture.
The best I can know about what I'm doing is to do what feels right this moment. Making this video feels right, but I don't know what I'm doing as far as how you're going to receive this video, where this video is going to be watched and what difference it will make. Maybe this video will cause the end of the world, maybe it'll bring about a utopia. I don't know.
In that sense no one knows what they're doing in terms of the consequences, in terms of how it will be received in the future. We're all just doing our best here and that to me gives me courage to follow my dreams, to try to make a world that I would love to come back to. Because I get the feeling that this isn't my first go-around or my first trip into this world, and I'd like to be able to come back anywhere in it and have a wonderful life.
Therefore I try the best I can to do things that seem like they'll bring about or keep bringing about a world that I'd like to come back to, and the trick is that I don't know where I'm going to come back. I don't know what country I'm going to be born into, who my parents will be, so I try and make things that I hope will be of service in making a world I'd like to come back to wherever I happen to land in it.
That's my big motivation, my big why. My bottom kind of my dreams is to share in making a world that we all love and enjoy being in, a world that's beautiful. Yes, there's a certain amount of despair. When you start actually trying to follow your dreams, there's this despair like, Why even bother? What difference is my little contribution going to make? The world is so messed up. What difference will it make if I try to follow my dreams?
I think sometimes, Are the dreams I'm following actually helping?
What if human beings are like a plague on this planet and I'm helping, if you think of it in terms like a sickness, like a bacterial infection of the throat, for example, and I'm a little bacteria in this body here, and I'm helping all the bacteria grow and spread, and we're going to all kill the host.
Sometimes I wonder, Are my dreams really a good thing? Is it good for me to make this video right now? Why not just sit out in the parking lot in the car or go find a different spot in the hotel while my daughter is napping and just read a book? Why don't I just read something someone else created? Look how perfect it is already done in this book.
There's a certain despair when you look out and see all the things that are, what you might call, wrong with the world. All the horrible waste and crimes, atrocities, all the things that aren't even talked about that are going on, all the abuse that's happening around the world.
There's a certain amount of despair when you actually try to follow your dreams. A hopelessness like, What difference is my drop of water going to make in the ocean? if you combine that with the perfect, to the perfectionism, like other people are doing so good.
Jerrys videos are so good, why even bother? I'm not going to even try and make a video. Look at his camera quality. I'm not going to buy a camera. I'm not going to buy this software he has. Why even bother trying? Look, his videos are good enough. I'll just watch his, I'm not even going to try to make my own.
The truth is that I have all the same feelings that everyone else does and that I've had my whole life. My feelings are just like my daughter who is two years old. I get mad, I cry, I want my way, I get frustrated, things aren't how they're supposed to be and those are normal.
If there's a word for it, if there's a phrase, if there's a description of it, it's because someone else has done it before. Feeling like we're alone, like we're not good enough encourages not following our dreams, and then that encourages tearing other people's dreams down because it's offensive.
Why does Jerry get to sit there and he gets to make videos? He doesn't have to go to work and do a job anymore. He shouldn't be able to do that."
You go get a real job, Jerry, get a real job. You shouldn't follow your dreams because I'm not following mine.
That's a very understandable tendency. My daughter is two years old, when my wife picks up a baby doll and holds it, my daughter gets offended like, Mom, I'm your only child, you shouldn't be messing around, don't hold that doll. I'm your baby.That's called jealousy and that's a normal emotion we feel, and yet I've learned there's something good behind even every emotion like jealousy.
My daughter loves her mother and father so much that she gets jealous when someone else gets her time and attention.
I used to get jealous seeing what people were doing online and I still have the ability to get jealous if I put myself into comparison. I go look at someone else's Steemit account and when they've got more Steem than me, I'm jealous. Like all of a sudden, all the Steem I have is not enough because someone else has more. That's crazy. That kind of stuff stopped me from following my dreams.
I was empowered by seeing the imperfections that a YouTuber I watch with millions of subscribers named NoahJ456 allowed to show in his videos. He doesn't make out like he's some superstar who does everything right. He started out a video for two minutes and his mic was muted, and he didn't edit that out. He didn't take the video down because he looked stupid for two and a half minutes as he sat there. The moment he realized his mic was muted, I laughed so hard. I was waiting and wondering, How long will it take him to realize his mic is muted?
What stops us from trying to accomplish our dreams is the fear of other people judging us. What I've found is that the harshest judgement is myself. To judge that I haven't even tried to follow my dreams is the harshest judgment. I realize today that no one's going to give me a more cruel judgement on myself than me. All the comments you might see on the videos about how stupid I am or how scummy I am, or what I'm going to turn out to be in the future, none of that is as bad as what goes on in my own head.
I've learned that not following my dreams, not following my passion, I'm stuck all day with the torturer in my head. Well, you are never going to grow up to be anything. You're never going to do anything useful in this world. Look, what have you accomplished?
You don't have to accomplish things in terms of numbers. You don't have to have a million views or ten million views or a hundred million views, or you don't need to have any followers online at all. Following your dreams can be as simple as being a good parent.
My dream is to be a dad that I'm proud of, that my daughter loves. That's one of my dreams. That's been a dream since I've been a child, to have a family and be a good husband and father.
I forgot about that dream for a while. I didn't think it was possible, like no girl is ever going to love me. I'm unlovable, I'm not good looking enough, I'm not big enough, I'm not blah, blah, blah. The truth is, when I had the courage to start trying to follow my dreams, I've gotten a much better life since then. That torturer in the head doesn't have all the ammo when I'm following my passion.
Sure, you may see comments on this post, or people just may not even read it. Who cares? I'm following my dreams right now. There's no one else watching this right now as I'm making this. I'm in a conference room by myself. The great thing is I feel like I'm just talking to myself. I'm sharing what I hope is useful for me today to have a happy life as a part of my Happier People Podcast, my YouTube channel, and my Facebook page.
I'm sharing what I need to hear today because I quickly forget. I quickly get sucked into the metrics plugged-in where I just got to just go after as many views as possible.
"Jerry, you can't sit in an Embassy Suites conference room and make a video, just sitting in a chair, you don't have anything to say. Come on, you're going to make something about cryptocurrencies. More people will watch that. You'll make more money off of that."
I'm grateful that following my dreams is as simple as trying to help myself, say something that's useful for me.
Thank you very much for reading this post which was created from the transcription by GoTranscript of the video above!
I love you.
You're awesome.
I hope this has been helpful for you today, to be inspired to follow your dreams.
If I can follow my dreams, you are perfectly capable of following your own dreams too. I bet you're already following them today, whether you realize it or not.
Thank you.
I hope to see you again soon.
If you found this post helpful on Steemit, would you please upvote it and follow me because you will then be able to see more posts like this in your home feed?
Love,
Jerry Banfield with edits by @gmichelbkk
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