ambitions, reality & a shove towards adulthood

Hello!

Now that exams are over and summer is looming, I'd like to think I'll be posting more often. I hope so, anyway.

After recently finishing my first year of GCSE exams and just completing a survey for my school about what sort of help I'll need next year to work out career options, I've started thinking about where the line is drawn when it comes to dreams. There is a time when ambition becomes delusion, it seems, if the majority of adults are to be believed.

There are many adults that fully support their child's dreams, and will help them find any path to get them where they want to be. They will show their child love and trust while they navigate dangerous waters trying to reach that tiny dot of land in the distance with a rotting sign stuck in the ground, DREAM scrawled across it. My parents are in this particular group. But quite a few shove the next generation towards reality too early.

Let children be children. Let them dream of becoming astronauts and sports stars and writers and ballerinas. Let them dream that they can do what they love and be who and what they want to be. Let them hold onto those dreams, because suddenly they'll be shoved towards adulthood.

They'll have to think about "reasonable" and "realistic" career options. They'll have to consider what options they want to take, what they want to do at university, if they want to go to university, what they'll do after university, if the career they want will provide for themselves and, eventually, a family. And because the idea that some careers aren't accessible to us is branded into our minds from an early age, many children give up on their hopes and ambitions to pursue something they don't want to do, but think is more likely to happen than the one thing they want to do more than anything.

I'm at an age where soon I'll be making A Level choices, and then I'll be thinking of universities and degrees. I'm pretty sure I know what I want to do where degrees are concerned. I've always been passionate about literature, so have known from an early age that English is something I want to study. The thing is, English isn't so great on its own, due to limited job opportunities (you see what I mean? Why shouldn't I do just English? Why is that not a good degree to have? Why can I not do what I love and want to do?) And I love the French language. So I'm pretty confident English and French is what I want to do.

But what do I want to do after?

I'm going to end this quickly, for fear of sounding like I believe in children giving up on their dreams and pursuing reality rather than passion. I think people should always look for any opportunity to do what they want to. Children are more intelligent than people think. They tend to know what they want from an early age. I know I did. All I want to do is write*.

Hold on to your passions. Don't try and fit into what's realistic. If you want to do something, work hard and you will get a chance to do it 9 times out of 10.

Chase after your dreams. Grasp at them with numb fingers and when your hands slip straight through like the goal is smoke, run faster, work harder, grip tighter.

Here we are, with our backs against the wall.

We've got big city dreams, but we don't move from the asphalt.

- Come Together, Echosmith**

- B x

*I'm going to start working on something over the summer, so be prepared for me to share that with you. I would love feedback, so if anyone is willing to read a chapter at a time and email me advice and amendments, please let me know in the comments.

**Very good song, definitely check it out!