Close your eyes for a moment and think back to a time where wishing in your world wasn’t so obsolete. Picture your younger days where making a wish was not only a common thing to do on birthdays or while gazing at stars, but was special every day because you lived in a world filled with imagination and belief in the impossible. As children, we’re granted with a special gift to dream boldly without knowing the power that comes with believing.
When I was younger I remember being able to make anything out of a cardboard box or something as simple as chairs and a blanket. That cardboard box would become so many things by the end of the day. One minute I would make believe it was a car or a boat, then I’ll turn around and cut up the entire box and that same cardboard would become a sled. For some reason once we get older, we lose our special gift to dream, imagine and believe in those things that seem above our reach. This same measure of belief should apply to our adult lives. Often we allow people to dictate who we are and who we should become. I was inspired to write this blog in response to a simple question that I was asked not so long ago by a family member, which was “what are you doing with your life?”
I am pretty sure that many of you have been asked this same question sometime or another by an invasive family member who you know deep down inside has your best interest at heart. Although, a lot of times it doesn’t initially come off that way. At first, I felt a rush of emotions, like anger and frustration because ultimately I felt misunderstood during this time in my life. I graduated in 2012 from Clark Atlanta University with a bachelor’s degree in print journalism that I had not fully had the chance to use yet and there it was 2013. The saying holds true that time is often its own keeper. In my mind, time was wasting away and I was drying up as Langston Hughes noted, like a raisin in the sun.
I use to say that after graduation the road to full-time employment in my field had been a long and hard one until I realized that I am on a journey. Don’t get me wrong having a degree and not being able to use it fully for not only a year and a month, but for 4 years was quite discouraging. In fact, according to recent reports from Pew Research Center, the unemployment rate among recent grads remain higher than it has been since the Great Recession. They found that in 2012, about 44 percent of grads were working in jobs that didn’t require a college degree.
So how did I respond, I decided to push harder. I’m chasing my dream. Follow my journey!!
DREAM CHASER 