“The casual ones end up having very casual talent and very casual lives”
– Derek Sivers.
I’m Yaël Levey. And I don’t want to be casual.
As far as I can tell, we humans are pretty terrible at pushing ourselves to break out of the mould. We’re brought up believing in “the real world”, believing in the illusion of “normal”. And where does this get us? Well, as Tyler Durden says, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. Just so we can be like everyone else. We forget to believe that we can do things that haven’t been prescribed by society. We forget about our innermost dreams, our desires, our goals. And worse, we postpone trying to remember them, because the ‘real world’ gets in the way – that report our boss wants, fixing up our house, watching X Factor.
And I’m really sick of it.
I was brought up in a house where my Dad absolutely hated his job but refused to do anything about it because the money was pretty good. I had to listen to him complain every night when he got home about how bad his job was, and I had to watch as he got older and older without doing anything to make his life more meaningful. Now, middle-aged, he has absolutely no self-belief that he can do anything to make a change. He feels his dream of being a music teacher and educator is out of his grasp, that he wouldn’t be able to make any money doing it, and that it is way too late for him to even try. A lot of people agree with him..
We’re often scared to articulate our dreams. This is the fault of the same people who agree that its too late for my Dad to do anything about his dream. People will routinely tell you that your dream is impossible, or impractical, or not what you should be doing with your life. You can be looked down and sneered upon for even mentioning the word ‘dream’. Why is it a badge of honour to be slogging away at your desk job working for the man and a point of ridicule to spend any real time working on yourself?
Every day we put our dreams and goals to one side, and start following the same paths that everybody else goes down, the paths that society tells us are the right ones to follow. For some people, they can be perfectly happy following those well-trodden paths, and happy to die in their beds feeling they’ve lived fulfilled and happy lives.
But I don’t want to live like that. I want to be a superhero. I want to fill every moment of my life with purpose and with a tremendous sense of being alive. I don’t want to regret a second, because these are the only seconds I got. I want to live a big, adventurous life doing big, adventurous things. And time is running out.
SO. I’m dedicating my life to making sure that I get to live my dreams. And that you get to live yours too. I’m obsessed with making sure that everybody gets to articulate for themselves what they want out of their life, and help them achieve it. But its hard work. Nothing is going to fall into my lap, or yours. You’ve got to be the hero in your own story, and strive every day to tirelessly work towards your passion. Nobody else is going to do that for you. And if you don’t do it, you’ll fall into somebody else’s story – and you ain’t gonna be the main character.
Want to know more about me?
Here are my rules.
Read about my ultimate life goals and my adventures crossing them off!
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Autobiographical and other facts.
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