Writer of Dreams

I believe that every decision I'll ever make, every person I'll ever meet, every road I'll ever traverse is drawn out on a map, penned in the galaxies. Whatever happens by the end of the race was meant to happen. Even if I don't know the reason I know that an event is never without reason. I believe in destiny, so to speak.

However, just because I believe in destiny does not mean I expect life to toss everything in my lap. I'm quite purpose driven. The entirety of my life has been spent making goals. In fact each hospitalization that I've had part of the reason I got through them is because I had some goal. My last serious hospitalization I was 17 and I wasn't supposed to make it. I remember saying in my head over and over again, “You can't die because you have to go to prom.” In retrospect that was kind of silly. I had more important upcoming events such as high school graduation or my graduation trip. But I was a girl that had spent my whole life dreaming about prom (not my wedding) and nothing, not even pneumonia and one non-functioning lung was going to deprive me of that night. Goals are what saved me.

As a child, I had aspirations of being the next Whitney Houston (minus the crack part), an actress on the red carpet, a dancer, a fashion designer, stuff like that. Then my disease kept progressing. I'm positive I was a famous stage actress in another life. Anyway, when those dreams were no longer viable I made new ones. To me, real life sometimes sucks if you have nothing to look forward to.

Many people think one of the biggest problems with my generation is that we don't believe the American Dream is alive so we just wait for our destinies to take shape. I think it's more than the elusive American Dream that stops people my age from going after their goals. I think most people are afraid of failing. They rather acomplish nothing than fail at something. The funny thing about that is the most famous people in the world experienced failures and rejections before anyone knew their names. The great thing about having aspirations is that no matter how many people don't believe in you they can't take your dreams. You're the keeper of your goals, don't pass out the keys.

And you don't have to have big goals, but have something. Make a goal to just be happy. Or to work hard so one day you can support your family. Or to travel more. Anything. If there's one thing I can't stand it's people who constantly complain about their lives but never do anything to change them.

I believe that my whole life is already written out, but I'm the co-author. Very little will happen if I don't set out and push the first domino. I want to look back on my life with few to no regrets. In order to do that I know I have a lot to get done.

So, are you contributing to the story of your life or are you just hoping it will all, magically, write itself?