Reality Bites

While growing up we all have big dreams and big ideas about what our lives will be like, what we will achieve, what we will do. Sadly not all of those dreams come true, if at all. Somewhere along the way we abandon one dream after another for one reason or another, until we are nothing but regular people settled into our mundane ordinary lives and we have nothing but bills and mortgages, wondering often what life would have been like if any one of those dreams had come true. This wistfulness perhaps never lets us be fully happy or content with what we have. Maybe that's the reason why the idea of getting old and never really going after the things they most wanted makes people do crazy things during the mid-life. They seek some meaning or thrill to compensate for missing out on the desired life of adventure and excitement before they fade into the twilight years of their lives.
I often wonder is life more satisfying for people who go after their dreams and spend years pursuing their passions, doing things they believe they are destined to do in this world? Is it really rewarding to sacrifice anything and everything in trying to accomplish your childhood goals, your teenage whimsies and dealing with disappointments and rejections on a daily basis until you may or may not succeed in achieving your goals. In other words is it really better to have failed then never to have tried at all?
I don't know the answer to that. I guess just like anything else in life it depends. But I do know with me I feel completely restricted and tied down in the mundane 9-5 work week and blow out steam on the weekend lifestyle and in my moments of desperation I go back to to what had been my biggest dream as a teenager, travel all over the world and write about it or have a travel show on BBC or something. The more I think about it the more suffocated I feel. Each day that I spend tied down in front of the computer ends with me feeling like I am serving a life sentence. I am not kidding. Its bad.
I guess what makes me feel worse is that I never really tried to see if I can even make this dream come true, never tried to go after it. I guess I never really believed this was an option for me you know, growing up where I did and knowing what I knew. I just told myself that this was nothing more than a fancy, a dream that can never actually come true. And that just makes me sad :(
I guess part of it came true. I moved to the US, saw a whole new world, met so many amazing people and I am not exactly chained up against my will. No one really dictates my life to me, I come and go as I please, have friends and family and life is generally good. But it isn't the same. I still do a job that I have no passion for and is motivating only because it pays my bill. Somehow trying to stay in this land of free, I actually traded away that very thing...freedom. In the process of obtaining a permanent residence, I settled into this job, accumulated debt, developed an appetite for the material world and got further and further away from the life that I once wanted. And now that I have that status, I find myself stuck, settled uncomfortably in the comfort of status quo. I have too many responsibilities, too many miles on the human pedometer, too much brain and not enough heart. I have to think about buying a home, supporting my old parents, save to make sure the future is secured. No courage..just regrets and fear. The only thing that the logic deems important is security, stability and money. Money!! that's just it.
And so I stay in this life so mundane and regular with its uninspiring job and mountain of bills and worries that I purposefully make it as chaotic as possible by making reckless decisions, marrying to seemingly romantic yet ridiculous ideas, and my very favorite procrastinating until there is no room to do so, just so I can feel excited and alive. I am after all a drama whore. (Yes, I just graduated myself from a drama queen to a drama whore).
But this is no life, no passion, no real ambition just wistful wondering about what life would have been like if I had gone after my dream. Fought for it to make it happen. I am pretty sure life would not be so...pointless. At least I would feel like I took a chance. Sigh! A part of me just wants to become even more regular by obtaining a conventional family life just so it can maybe have a deeper meaning. Yeah like that wouldn't make me feel more tied down and settled.
I tell myself I am being ungrateful that I have a good life and I have accomplished a lot that I had hoped to achieve but somehow it makes me even more restless and suffocated as that would mean I am settling. I am not okay with this. Somethings gotta give.
I think I am having an early mid-life crisis. Don't be surprised if my next post is from some remote town in the middle of the Australian Outback.