““How do you distinguish the passing daydreams from the ones you change your life for?” Well, you distinguish them by trying them out for a while. Everyone daydreams about changing their lives for some soaring pursuit, but you don’t necessarily START by changing your whole life first. Sometimes, making a really big change is an escapist move that points to your inability to live right here, right now, working hard and tolerating uncertainty like we all have to do throughout our entire lives, no matter what we’re doing or how old we are. Sometimes, when you invest your life savings pursuing a graduate degree in a field you don’t know much about, or you go into debt buying a bunch of art supplies but you haven’t spent a single afternoon drawing yet, that tells you that you’re trying to fix your whole life in one move. Maybe it’ll work, but it’ll put a lot of undue pressure on your dreams, pressure that your dreams don’t need. What your dreams need, sometimes, is patience and an ability to wander, to discover, and to patiently learn more about what you truly enjoy doing.
Try squeezing some of your daydreams in with the rest of your life instead. Make a little space for them. Try a few things, take a class, go to a lecture, read a book. Do some new stuff, and prepare to be overwhelmed and afraid when you do it. Prepare to hear, from your bad brain, that you are a joke and a failure. Prepare to fail. Keep trying things anyway. Say to yourself, “This scares me. I hate being bad at things. But I am having an adventure.” Say this over and over. You will keep trying and failing and trying. You will keep working very hard and you will see how that feels. Maybe you’ll discover that you’re bad at most of the things you’re trying. That’s fine! I’m feeling that way about a few of my brand-new pursuits right now. That’s just how it is when you start. Don’t draw hasty conclusions. Don’t use every scrap of evidence against yourself. Keep the faith.
Slowly but surely, you figure out if life-changing moves are in order. You will feel your way along, in the dark, until you have a feeling one way or another. You will — slowly, very slowly — learn to trust your instincts and learn to follow your feelings to your truest, deepest desires.”
Ask Polly: I’m Broke and I Hate My Job!
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