What price are your dreams worth?

I had a long talk last night with a very special friend, one of the best I’ve had in a long time. We basically covered a whole range of topics, but the one that stuck in my mind was related to dreams and money.

She told me that she was at a point in her life where she was faced with a quandary: should she pursue her dreams, the ones which she has had for over a decade, or should she instead try to find work and make the most money she could? The options are mutually exclusive, as she couldn’t do both at the same time. On the one hand, she could pursue her passions, but with the knowledge that, before she became successful in her field, she would have to really "struggle" first. On the other hand, she could pursue some career in a field that she really hated, earning decent money, but never looking forward to the next day’s work.

I told her it was no contest: she had to choose her dreams. I mean, what price are one’s dreams really worth? Sure money is good, but only because it can help pay for the things that help make you really happy. If you give up being really happy to make money, of what use is it then? The opportunity cost of giving up something so sacred to who you are, something so special that you have been dreaming about it since the time you could really formulate adult-level dreams, is incredible. Unless you’re making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, I just can’t see the opportunity cost being paid, to be honest. In my case, millions of dollars wouldn’t do it. That "hated" job would have to pay as well as what Bill Gates is worth for me to want to give up my dreams for it.

Of course, it’s easy to say "follow your dreams" when you have enough money to feed yourself, pay for rent, and so on. And I realize that all human beings have to have their most basic needs fulfilled, but my friend can earn all she needs for her basic necessities without having to take those "hated" jobs. She can find enough money to survive, and to pursue that which makes her happiest in life. So it’s not like she’s going to starve or anything. She may have to give up buying expensive things, or shopping on a whim, but what price is that to pay compared to the alternative? At the end of one’s life, one will never regret not buying another bag, or having spent less in a shopping spree… one WILL regret not giving one’s dreams a chance to be realized.

I have a simple philosophy with regard to choices like these: when faced with a difficult decision, always choose the one you will LEAST regret when you die. It has served me well so far, and I’m sure my friend will realize that it is a philosophy that will help her be happier with her own life. After all, I want to see her, in 30 or 40 years time, being happy and content with the life that she has led. I want her to be able to hold her head up high and tell the world that she made her own decisions, based on her own dreams, and that, regardless of the mistakes she may have made, she was proud of the life she has led. I do NOT want her to say that she is a rich yet bitter woman who can afford to buy the most expensive things on earth… and yet finds that nothing she could ever buy could ever make her as happy as the dreams she had given up many, many years before.

Just remember, before you choose the path that leads to great wealth, to ask what that wealth is really for. If it is to buy you greater happiness, then isn’t it counter-productive to give up what makes you most happy in life, just to be able to lead a life you hate with which you hope to be happy in the future? It really doesn’t make any sense to me.

If a fisherman has already found a way to catch his dream fish, and it’s right there, in front of him, would he then stop fishing and work in an office, just to buy a bigger fishing boat? I don’t know about you, but since that ocean is so damn wide, I will take the opportunity NOW to catch that fish… instead of spending the rest of my life dreaming about "the one that got away."