Why Following Your Dreams Can be a Disaster

Those of us with the advantage of time in our lives get the privilege of looking back at our younger selves and wondering, “My god, what were we thinking?” Recently, that is where I have been.

When I started this website, it was my 3rd attempt at putting my creativity to creative use. I had created brands before and I had fallen flat on my face. I had successfully launched a comic book series but had run out of money. When I started this site I wanted to refocus on myself and my creativity. I wanted to focus more on my own writing and my own perspective. For the first couple years of it’s life, it was the host for The Cameron Cowan Show. From here you could listen to a podcast, read a blog post or watch a great video. Since the closure of the show it’s gone through various states of activity and dormancy. I’ve played with what to do with it. I thought about closing the site entirely and I thought about maybe just writing and blogging for fun. Recently, I’ve tried to return to it seriously by continuing to offer the perspective that I know my readers appreciate. 

I’ve done quite a bit of growing in the 4 years I’ve been here in Seattle. I’ve learned a great deal about myself and I’ve learned a great deal about this industry and what it means to be a content provider. I know more about what it means to write every day and produce all the emails and marketing that grew my show from a few friends to a small but global reach. 

I enjoyed so much of filming those videos and all the work that it took for that effort to get off the ground. However, I also wanted to write about some of the things that don’t really get mentioned. My show was a failure. It has been said that “they don’t write about the failures.” I’m here to write about them and why I do think following your dreams can be a disaster.

Following your dreams can be a disaster because there is no guarantee that they will come true.

What is On The Other Side of Your Dreams?

I never thought too much about what would happen after I realized my dreams. I also never thought about what would happen if I failed. I should have thought about it. I had failed a few times already. I knew what it was like to wake up the next day after it all burnt down. I knew what it was like to shuffle into the kitchen and get coffee and wonder, “Ok, now what?”

That moment is one of the most reflective of my life. And so I want to close this post with some advice for those who have failed: there is life after failure and following your dreams can be a disaster. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make you or break you. It merely means that you tried something really wonderful. Now you know that you can do something. You can try something and no matter where you end up, you’ll never be the same. Maybe that’s all following your dreams is about: never being the same as you once were.