“The dream is not a drug but a way. Listen to where it can take you.” -Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
It made me kind of jealous…
I started learning how to dream big about a year ago, when I started university.
I was nineteen, a freshman moving into a San Francisco residence hall that was conveniently placed on a noisy street right across from Ikea, and well-equipped with a perpetually-disgusting shared kitchen.
Overall, the first semester was something of a blur, and it was a period of adjustment- to academics, to life in SF, and to all the new relationships I was forming with friends, professors, and new connections in the city.
But what really struck me was how incredibly successful so many of my peers were. Among them were entrepreneurs, researchers, activists, and even published authors, all from different walks of life.
It made me feel lots of things, but most of all, it made me feel jealous.
I racked my brain for a single good reason for why I had never thought to become any of these myself. Why had I not even tried?
When I thought about it more deeply, exploring this question through journaling, I realized the main reason was that I just never thought it was possible for me.
It might sound sad, but it was the truth. I didn’t think I was smart enough, or organized enough, or cool enough, or capable enough, so I didn’t even bother to dream it.
In essence, I trained myself to think small using beliefs I had no evidence for.
Over the past year though, I have pushed myself to dream bigger. I have chosen to choose my beliefs and life with intention.
The results have been incredible.
So today I want to urge you to choose to choose. Dare to dream big dreams. Because, really, why not?
Okay.
Now is when I talk to the person rolling their eyes because I sound like their hippie best friend’s Pinterest board.
I wrote this for you.
Me at the start of my freshman year.
7 reasons why it would be silly to do not dream big:
#1: You only have 4,000 weeks of being alive.
Let’s do some math, inspired by one of my favorite self-help books of all time, 4000 Weeks, by Oliver Burkeman.
There are 52 weeks in a year, and a typical human lives 80 years.
80 52 = 4,160
So if you’re an infant, you have about 4,000 weeks of being alive (if you’re lucky enough to live a full 80 years).
If you’re 20 years old like me, the math looks like this:
(80-20) 52 = 3,120
If you’re 35, it looks like this:
(80-35) 52 = 2,340
If you’re 50, it’s this:
(80-50) 52 = 1,560
At what point do you have less than a thousand weeks left? At 60.77 years old.
(80 – ?) 52 < 1,000
It’s not a lot of time when you think about it. I think we should make it count, don’t you?
#2: You gain more information by doing the thing than by not.
If you don’t find math convincing, let’s instead talk about the practical matter of making life decisions, and how to make them well.
Imagine if you only ever tried chocolate ice cream. For years, this was your go-to flavor because it was familiar, and you knew you liked it.
Then, one day, your friend convinces you to try strawberry, and you find it disgusting. You think, “This is why I should have just stuck to chocolate.” So you do.
Now, when someone asks if you like strawberry ice cream, you give a confident “ew, no”.
However, it’s important to recognize that your decision to try strawberry only speaks to strawberry.
Don’t use your dislike for strawberry to then justify not trying biscoff-flavored ice cream, or French vanilla, or cookies and cream.
The more ice cream flavors you try, the more you know what you really like and what you don’t. With that knowledge, you will then be able to choose a really good flavor next time you go to an ice cream shop (and in the end, you might realize chocolate wasn’t the best flavor after all).
#3: You are way more capable than many of the people already doing the thing.
Have you ever watched a TV show and thought “I could’ve written a better script”, or gone to a restaurant and found yourself saying “I could have made this better at home”?
If that’s you- criticizing the people who have put themselves out there and actually succeeded- then I hate to break it to you, but you’re the bigger loser.
Truth be told, you could certainly do that thing you’ve always wanted to do.
But the point isn’t whether you could do it, it’s whether you actually do.
However, this is also good news.
The fact that there are people with way less talent and skill than you who have done it before means there’s a chance.
It means there is a playbook. There is a way. If they could figure it out, so can you.
#4: You can still change your mind!
If you’re like me- a super indecisive person who is perpetually terrified at the opportunity cost that comes with actually making decisions- please listen up.
There are very few things in life that aren’t reversible, and even within the category of reversible decisions, there are very few decisions that are difficult to reverse.
Most daily decisions are actually so small we don’t even notice them: what you choose to have for lunch, whether you decide to read a new book or not, what podcast you turn on during the drive home, how you spend your Friday night…
Yet, these micro-decisions are what make up most of our life.
When you dream big, it’s not all about making big all-or-nothing choices. It’s not about being as dramatic as possible when you realize you need a change.
Instead, it is about experimentation, and sometimes the experiment reveals that you actually don’t want exactly what you thought.
The beauty, though, is that at any point, you can still change your mind.
If you start pursuing something, you can still walk away from it.
The key is to not be afraid of making small but frequent pivots on your way to the dream.
Over time, these little pivots will lead you right to where you want to be.
#5: You will inspire the people watching.
When I was a little kid, I used to take swimming lessons. Cautious from the very beginning, I resisted letting go of the ledge and swimming in the parts of the pool where I couldn’t reach the bottom.
I simply didn’t want to flounder in the deep end and suffer the sharp sting of water rushing up my nose as I struggled to catch a breath.
Enter: my baby brother.
Two years younger than me, my brother was supposed to be helpless in the pool, or at least more helpless than me.
This was not so.
My brother learned to swim easily, and let go of the ledge with no problem.
The whole thing was embarrassing, truth be told.
However, in seeing him learn so quickly, I realized I was being ridiculous.
Swimming wasn’t that hard. I just had to let go of the ledge and stop being a scaredy cat.
The thing is, most of us are holding onto the ledge still, and all we need to let go is to see our baby brother waddle into the pool with his silly little swim diapers and show us how it’s done.
When you dream big, you will become the person who makes everyone else realize how much their fear is holding them back.
#6: It will probably give you amazing memories anyway.
Is ‘fun’ a good enough reason to live a big life and pursue crazy goals?
Yes, I think it is.
The thing holding us back from that, though, is the voice that rattles off all the logistical complications, all the disapproving stares, and tells us it’s “too late”, or you’re “too old”, or “no one has done it before”, and “there’s no time anyway”.
To that, I say yes, it will be scary.
Yes, you might have to hire a babysitter.
And yes, it will cost you money or time or effort, and you might very well look stupid and feel stupid.
I say, do it nevertheless, because once you get past the “figuring out how to make this work” stage, you will be so glad you now get to cherish those memories for the rest of your life.
#7: You will become an even cooler person.
I put this reason last to emphasize that the whole point of dreaming big isn’t necessarily to get what you want, but to become who you want.
By signing up for a marathon, not only can you say you did the marathon. You can also cast a vote every day for becoming the type of person who wakes up early to train.
Similarly, by travelling to a new country, not only can you say you ticked that country off your bucket list. You can also cast a vote for the version of you that is adventurous and curious.
Every decision reinforces a part of your personality, so it makes perfect sense to act in a way that reinforces who you want to be.
Chances are, when you really explore what you want from life, it will provide you with a clear step-by-step path to becoming the version of yourself you have always wanted to be.
…So go for it!
There are hard decisions in life, but I hope I have convinced you that whether or not to really dream big isn’t one of them.
Not only will it fill your 4000 weeks with joy and beauty, but it will also lead you right to where (and who) you want to be.
…And who knows, maybe your crazy, impossibly-big dream will even become reality?
Thought To Action
- Map the Impossible: Write down three “too big” ideas you’d pursue if fear, money, or skill weren’t limits. Circle one. Start with the smallest visible step.
- Use Tech Intentionally: Schedule a daily “digital audit”—10 minutes to check what tools you actually use to create versus to consume. (See this guide to mindful tech habits).
- Build an Independent Study Track: Pick a theme you want to master this year (creativity, AI, storytelling) and design your own syllabus—books, podcasts, projects, mentors.
- Pair Reading with Doing: For every chapter you read, add one experiment to test the idea in real life.
- Reflect in Reverse: Once a week, ask: “What did I not do because I underestimated myself?”—then do one of those things, badly but bravely.
Sources
Burkeman, Oliver. Four Thousand Weeks :$BTime and How to Use It. London, Uk, Jonathan Cape, 2021.
Leave a Reply