I think a vast majority of people today feel as if they don’t matter. By that I mean they feel as if they are just a small part of this big picture. We are told as kids to dream big and as we get older society and people who have failed at their dreams pick holes in ours and deem them ridiculous (See my post “A Childish Mindset). In reality, living out your dreams really isn’t that hard. In most cases, nothing is stopping you. It is this low self-esteem that society hands us early on that makes us think that we ourselves cant possibly do something that will be seen as great.
I watched a Maya Angelou interview once where she said the problem with how history is taught. It is taught in a way that makes you think that a Malcolm X level of greatness is unreachable and that those types of people are bigger than life. In reality, these people eat, shit, and sleep just like you do. They have faults just like us, some, even more. None of these people are better than you. They may have accomplished more in certain fields but they are just men and women just like you and I.
I was an intern at Reebok for the first 6 months of this year and while there I met Swizz Beatz. The first thing I told him was that he was a huge inspiration and that it was amazing to meet him. He replies by telling me that it is in fact young people like me that inspire him to keep going. I started talking about my aspirations in life and how much I appreciate what he has done for music (Looking back, I probably was talking too much). Afterword, we dap and I go home. I tell this story because I that moment I learned someone like Swizz Beatz, a legend in Hip-Hop, is just a man, just like me. In that conversation I realized he and all other people I consider great are reachable. Their feats started with a vision and determination. Now maybe Swizz didn’t know and still doesn’t know how much that conversation had an impact on me but I plan on seeing him again later in life and I’ll explain it all then.
You probably read the last line of that last paragraph like me seeing him again and especially having another conversation is almost ridiculous. That is what I’m talking about here. It isn’t at all. Many people live with this feeling of we don’t “matter” in the big picture when we can “matter” as much as we decide we want to. We can’t just post these cliché Instagram quotes and tweet about chasing our dreams it comes a point where things have to get done. Now I know I’m writing this here on a blog and that is sort of the same as what I just criticized, but I am as if not more focused on my dreams than anyone I know.
The dream is real. You just have to go live it. Greatness is possible.
Aww fuck that probably sounded cliché as shit....
But I mean it though.