My whole time growing up, probably like many (most?) people, I was told to "follow my dreams." Now I'm just trying to figure out, what does that even mean? I just found this Psychology Today article that says "Don't quit everything and make bumper stickers for environmentalists. That's just dumb." I аgreed with that since I don't think cutting out a bunch of cheap colored pieces of paper is the height of human achievement, but I was just like "wait, that's what that was supposed to mean?" I grew up thinking that the best dream you can have is whatever gives you the most interesting stories to tell to other people. Take the movie The Sound of Music. It's telling people to follow their dreams, but the entire movie is about her running away from the convent to marry the Navy guy, and then from the Nazis. I have no idea what happens afterward aside from a lot of Alp-climbing while singing in dirndls and lederhosen (please sign me up,) but just her singing with the kids over and over again simply wouldn't make an interesting movie. I might just have read too much Nietzsche and had too much disdain for Oprah growing up, but how do the people around you use motivational phrases like this?
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