Ask Lemmy

I never found "the dream" qnd honestly

I dont know if i regret that more

I have a few times in life, but I've always found a new one.

Each time I'd get deep enough into something, tech advancements always made that thing functionally obsolete.

Once again I'm watching my skill set being phased out, but am working on my big last hurrah project right now that I've dreamed of for years. Having a great time doing it, but have already started the process of replacing it over the next 18 months.

The one plus side now is that the company I'm with has already invested in my training for the next big thing. I've been through it enough times that I don't feel like I'm losing something or wasted my time.

No regrets. The dream was unrealistic; the path to it filled with shitty pay, shitty people, and shitty tasks - all for a 0.001% chance of success. I realized I preferred having a normal life and enjoyed my youth instead. My current life is more enjoyable than chasing the dream ever was.

I wanted to be a filmmaker but was forced to choose a different path when my grandfather (who had set up a small college fund for me) refused to pay for school unless I chose something more practical. I caved and majored in journalism (my mom was a photojournalist before I was born) but was so heartbroken I dropped out in my first year. I tried a second time to go to school but I couldn't stay engaged after learning the thing I had been working towards since middle school was no longer an option.

I ended up going to work in tech instead. In my late 20's I thought I would figure out making short films on my own wrote a script, bought some gear, but when I looked at how bad I was at social media and how much I wanted someone to see my work, I thought the odds were against it.

A few years ago some unrelated mental health issues made it impossible for me to work and I am writing a script for an audio drama which is hopefully cheaper to produce and a zine about Utopia while I recover.

Bailing on my dream wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Most of my problems and regrets are related to the undiagnosed and untreated mental illness that destroyed my already struggling career a few years ago. Not making the elder millennial version of Point Break sucks, but maybe if the audio drama works I can parley that success into a streaming series (Archive 81 style).

I'm still in the process of letting mine die (hope is a stubborn thing), but sometimes you need to accept your lot in life. Not everyone gets to do everything they want to.

now, I just don't know what else to dream for instead. As it is, I'm just existing and waiting to die.

A dream is something you need to asume that you may never reach it. Or Maybe not in the form of you imagined. With the time I have been around, there were some things that after I had accomplished I realized they were actually dreams I wanted and I never knew. Some others became real dreams by valorating what happened.

I'm not getting a Nobel. It's mostly a political prize.

I'm not getting a second house in the Northern Hemisphere, somewhere around the Alps, so I'd get two autumns + winters per year. It sounds fancy but eventually it would become a chore.

I'm not marrying and having children. I simply don't see the point any more; I don't even care about romantic relationships any more.

I'm not going to make "the final" reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, the one that will solve all issues with the current ones. It's fun to do some "backyard science" here and there, but other people are better skilled at this than I am.

My dream was the stereotypical actress one, but I never had the confidence to really go for it despite people telling me I'd do well.

Honestly, I regretted not doing it for a span of time, but everything I've learned both about the industry and me as a person since then made me realize that it probably would have made me miserable, even if I'd "made it."

The price of fame, to me, wouldn't have been worth it. The fakeness of Hollywood, the constant networking/having to deal with people who have a whole host of personality disorders that make them seek out that job, a life constantly being looked into, the persisting pedo problem, the Harvey Weinsteins, etc... I enjoy acting, it's super fun, but I'm glad I went a different route.

I'm a substation designer now.

What exactly it's "the dream"?

Edit: I believe you are talking about "the dream" as what we would want to be as a older person when we were kids, I think the 95% of people out there renounce to "the dream" so it's pointless to answer you.