DREAM DEFERRED
Dreams are
what fuel us day to day. Dreams are
there to give us hope for a better tomorrow. But what happens when those dreams
are deferred? Our parents and grandparents dealt with many life situations that
may have put their dreams on hold. These
life situations were unavoidable and had to be dealt with accordingly. With our grandparents and great grandparents
they were part of surviving the Great Depression so they had to do what was
needed to make sure their family didn’t starve.
They may have had dreams, but priorities came first and so the dreams
were deferred. Our parents went through
the civil rights era whether it was the right to be seen as an equal no matter
the race or to be taken seriously in the workplace as a woman; because of these
limitations dreams were sometimes forcibly deferred. Racism kept individuals from becoming
doctors, lawyers, professors, etc.
Little girls were taught that they could only go into certain
professions such as teachers, secretaries, etc and that the higher paying
careers should be left to men. That they should just be focused on being a
great wife, mother, and glorified house cleaner. For our parents it was prejudice that
deferred the dreams of so many.
What are the
reasons that dreams have been deferred for our generation? Even though we just went through the Great
Recession it definitely could not hold a torch to the Great Depression. Although there is still racism and sexism out
in the world it is nowhere near what was going on through the sixties and seventies. Today more than ever anyone can be anything
that they want to be. There is nothing
holding them back, but themselves.
Education is free and if you want to work hard no one is going to keep
you from doing that. There are so many
stories about individuals who come from the most desperate situations and they
go on to be highly successful people who end up helping others reach their own
potential. So what could be holding our
dreams back? The answer is complex while
simple at the same time. It is this
generation’s debt vs. income ratio as well as our behavior toward money in
general.
There is so
much complaining every day on social media and out in public about how everyone
hates their job. Continuously people say
“Thank God it’s Friday” and “Oh no it’s Monday” and so it is apparent that
millions of people are not living their dream at least when it comes to their
job. So why don’t they just quit the job
they hate so much, go after their dream, and live happily ever after? It’s simple, they need the paycheck. Why do they need the paycheck because they
have debt that is not going to magically disappear. There is too much debt compared to the amount
of income coming in so walking away from a paying job could lead to a financial
catastrophe. Even though this is a huge
problem for the individual it can be handled and this individual could still go
and live out their dreams, but here is the difficult part: Behavior. Although people want to live out their
dreams, those dreams are not powerful enough to convince them to stop spending
money and adding on to the debt in their life and so as a result dreams are
deferred. People go through life doing
what they don’t want to just for a needed paycheck and when retirement comes
they look back on their life with sadness because they spent eight hours a day,
five days a week, for forty years doing something they hated.
Dreams don’t
have to be deferred anymore! We all can
make a decision today to say an interesting word to ourselves and that word is
NO! NO to spending money that should be going to paying down debt. NO to friends and family members who want us
to spend money we don’t have on stuff we don’t need. NO to working a job that is not our calling
just because we need a paycheck. It is
time to take the steps needed to get out of debt so that you can live out that
dream. Do you want to help others in
need, do you want to start your own charity, how about travel the world and
take pictures that could change the way others look at the world? Those dreams whatever they may be are still
alive in you, but your behavior towards money has to change in order for those
dreams to come to reality. Sacrifice for
that dream has to start today and although people may pressure you and even
laugh at you while you are getting out of debt once you are living your dream
and they are still in a job that they hate the laughter surely will stop.
My first
career I use to love, but eventually it went south and I was no longer happy,
but I could not quit because our family was $45,000 in debt. I was stuck going through the motions each
day just so our family debt could be paid.
I became fed up one day and decided that I had a dream and that job wasn’t
it so I worked on getting out of debt and as a result life became unlimited. When you have NO DEBT you can start to do
what you want to do because you are not depending on anyone else for your
livelihood. Dreams start to come true
and make room for new dreams that change the world for the better. When retirement comes you look back on your
life and can honestly say you lived a life fulfilled! Only you can make your dreams come true!
Do you see
debt as a hindrance to your dreams?
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