# Don't follow your dreams, find them Created: [[2023_09_02]] 11:02 Tags: You have heard, especially from parents and those who support you, that you can do anything & that you should "follow your dreams". While this is said with good intent, it is lacking in obvious ways, for example, you can follow those dreams into kilos of cocaine. Like any other pithy advice, it ignores the practicalities of how most people make a living, what the market is willing to pay for and differences in circumstances (i.e. where you start makes a big difference). No, what you need for your work is to excel at something, and the passion for it will eventually follow if not already there. Within the book [[The Second Mountain - David Brooks|The Second Mountain]], Brooks identifies that society pushes you toward [[The Second Mountain - David Brooks#First Mountain|The First Mountain]] by making you climb a mountain to build your own character. People make their whole identities out of that one thing, even going as far as to introduce themselves as it (e.g. I am a teacher). We are so much more complex than just any one thing, which is what motivated Anne-Laure Le Cunff's article titled [[Stop Looking for The One]]. In it, she describes how the education system pushes you towards specialization, but she inverts that to explore a different way of looking at things, where we can explore more & more as we live, accumulating experiences. This, I believe, is what "follow your dreams" should try to articulate - not that you should pursue your specialty, but that you should pursue all your interests, however unconnected they may seem. Society may be pushing you onto this linear track, but as complex as we are, you should be able to pursue any variety of things as you see fit. Can we agree that dreams are not always the most well-thought-out ideas that we have? They may give us a heading for things we may enjoy, but they are literally not grounded in reality, whereas are experiences are. Your experiences made you who you are, shouldn't they also be an indicator of who you will become? Sampling allows you to find your dreams within reality. Don't know what you are good at yet? Sample, sample, sample. ![[Sampling Process.excalidraw.svg]] The more things that you sample, the more likely you are to run into different kinds of people that you otherwise would not have met. Meeting these different people builds up your network of people, which is where you are most likely to find opportunities for new experiences, jobs, and ideas. Your network has a big impact on your success as an individual because most of us are not doing things that are based on merit alone. For example, a runner doesn't have to convince anyone that they should be on the Olympic team, their results determine that. Most of us are in fields where you would need your network to vouch for you to get promoted in that job or to get your foot in the door for another one. > Performance drives success, but when performance can’t be measured, networks drive success. > - <cite>Albert-László Barabási [^1]</cite> [^1]: This quote is excerpted from Albert-László Barabási in his book [[The Formula The Universal Laws of Success - Albert-László Barabási|The Formula]]. By sampling different ideas, methods and lifestyles, you will have experiences and stories across a wider range of experiences than you otherwise would have had. Take the backpacker across Europe archetype, that range of experiences allows that person to build relationships with a range of people across cultures. They can see commonalities across cultures, to see the forest, not just its trees. This is an example of investing into your personal [[Identity Capital]] [^2]. You don't need to backpack across Europe for it, though, this can be saying yes to opportunities that you otherwise would have said no to. It could be taking that extra class in something that sounded cool, going whitewater rafting for the first time, or even taking a different route home from work. By pushing your comfort-zone into new experiences like these, you become more confident that you can confront the unknown. This gives rise to confidence in yourself, as you've proven to yourself that you can handle the challenge. [^2]: "Identity Capital" was coined by Meg Jay within her book [[The Defining Decade - Meg Jay|The Defining Decade]] The experiences you pursue don’t have to be connected to each other. A range of experiences allows you to draw from a wide pool of ideas and metaphors when dealing with new problems that arise. This allows you to connect ideas to distant fields that others may not otherwise reach for, giving you an advantage in approach to complex problems as described in [[Range - David Epstein|Range]] by David Epstein. This breadth is also not wasted if you choose to specialize later, you will actually use them as [[T Shaped Skills]] which is where you draw from your experiences to understand and empathize with others outside your specialty silo. Okay, so we've established that you should sample. But how do you actually do it? Read more about it in [[Exploration & Assimilation]]. ## Conclusion All in all, your dreams are just that, dreams. Leave them be, they are often just a distraction. Find the things that you truly enjoy by sampling around. Look for patterns in the things that you do to see if there is a common thread to them. That common thread is what you should pursue, if you love your work, it won't feel like work at all. ## References -