I am living my dream.

Of course, I have bigger dreams but for now, I am doing what I can to get there. Sadly, I know so many people who are not.

Over the past year, I have learned two important lessons about dreams. One, is about how to actually discover your dream, which will be discussed in this article. And two, is about how to finally get there, which will be discussed in the next post.

Discovering your dreams

Countless people say that you need to “find your dream”. You need to explore this entire world and find what you’ll love to do for a living. To discover your calling. To finally get your passion.

But it’s a wrong principle. Because sometimes it implies that you haven’t gotten your dream in you. It’s located someplace else rather than here.

Let’s start with my passion: writing. And how do I discover this? Is it by trying singing, playing music, painting, and doing other 1001 things first before I finally end up with writing? Nope. I have always loved writing. I just have never realised it.

It started in primary school. I used to have a crush on a senior and I wrote fancy love poems about him. Poems that sound so dodgy and I vow to never let anyone read them, ever. I was 11.

During junior high school I started to write even more dodgy love poems. Friendship poems. Heartbroken poems. I had three thick books containing quotes and stories about love and friendship. All of which I duplicated from various sources of books and Internet by hand. Like, literally, I printed the story and wrote them back in a book. Literally.

When I was in senior high, I wrote two poems, one for my Mom, and one for my Dad as a gift to them on my 15th birthday. I made several short stories, all of which were super lame and weird, and I fancy good scores in my English classes.

When I first got to uni, I decided to have a blog. It was a pure accident. But looking back, perhaps I have always loved writing. I just never realised I am in love.

Jon Acuff in his book Quitter said, “You don’t ask the bottomless, ‘What do I want to do with my life?’ but instead, ‘What have I done in my life that I loved doing?'”

And it’s true.

Dreams are not always to be found by trying new things. Sometimes they are to be found by searching your childhood and looking at what you are fond of doing. 

Have you found your dream? How did you discover it? Share your stories in the comment section below.

 

photo by Cavan Images