Diminishing Dreams

Every day, I realize that my life did not turn out the way that I thought it would.  I have always loved writing and thought that would be the perfect career to pursue.  I worked as hard as I possibly could.  This eventually earned me the Outstanding Journalism Student Award in 2006 from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

When I graduated, I believed that the world was my oyster.  I could literally do anything that I wanted to do.  Then, I managed to get a job as an Editor for two local newspapers.  I was over the moon!  I was writing my own stories, taking my own photographs and even managed two reporters.  Finally, my dream was a reality, or so I thought. 

I began working long hours for very little pay.  My boss turned out to be extremely sexist and anytime anything went wrong with the ancient computer software we were using, I was blamed for "not knowing how to use it."  Did I mention that no health benefits were offered?

Eventually, I moved on to yet another job.  The job was not something that I was passionate about, but, it paid the bills.  I found this to be the sad truth about every job that I took thereafter.  I felt like a nomad, moving from job to job trying to find something that I could get excited about and use my skills and talents.

Music is a huge part of my life.  I have been writing song lyrics for 12 years.  I view it as a diary of my life.  When I tried to pursue this avenue of employment, I was told by several production companies that my work was amazing.  Now all I had to do was give them X amount of money to make my dream come true.  Sadly, I gave in once.  The result was not good.  I do own the rights to the five songs that were created, but that's as far as it went.  In order to get my songs "pushed forward," I would have to pay the company (ies) even more money.

I then thought that publishing a book of my lyrics in poetry form would be the next logical step.  Again, I had to invest a substantial sum of money to get the book published.  And the company wanted, you guessed it, more money to market my book.

Now, I am very interested in the thought of being a Life Coach.  I have the background in communications and certainly have enough life experience to help those in need.  But, much like going back to school, the program that I am interested in costs money.

Why do we have to throw money at our dreams?  Our dreams are the things that make us happy and ultimately, what will allow us to earn a substantial living.  It seems that in America we have to buy our dreams.  And I, for one, do not have the funding to make these dreams come to fruition.