You know how growing up, you keep hearing questions like:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Who do you want to become?”
“Work hard so you can be successful.”
And success was often defined in narrow terms, study Engineering, Medicine, or Law. Choose careers that guarantee financial security and social prestige.
I was bombarded with this narrative. So, like many kids, I began to pick “dreams” based on what I was told success looked like.
I remember saying I wanted to become a banker, my elder sister was an accountant, and she seemed to command respect. Then I switched to engineering because my older brother was studying it, and my twin brother could fix electronics with ease. Later, I said I’d study Medicine because I read a book titled Where There Is No Doctor and felt inspired.
Eventually, I settled with Biochemistry.
But here’s the thing, none of those choices were made after deep personal reflection. I didn’t consult my soul. I didn’t ask what I truly wanted, or what would make me come alive.
It looked like I was choosing, but in hindsight, the choices were imposed, shaped by the expectations to “be somebody,” to “be rich,” and to earn society’s approval.
I was living someone else’s script, not my own.
Many years later, I started a journey inward. I began healing my inner child, the boy who only knew survival, not self-expression. The boy who learned to perform, not to feel. Who learned to impress, not to explore.
And that’s when I began choosing my dreams, not from fear or survival, but from a deep sense of purpose and inner safety.
I wasn’t trying to become somebody anymore. I was finally allowing myself to be.
I was no longer chasing a title, a status, or an identity handed to me. I was now building a life rooted in my essence.
In college, I scribbled something on my hostel wardrobe that makes me smile today. I wrote: “Lord Neche.”
It felt empowering at the time, like a declaration that I would become a great man one day. That I would be revered, respected, celebrated.
But looking back, I realize that dream came from a false self, a part of me that felt unseen, unheard, and unworthy. That boy didn’t want to live his dream, he wanted to escape his pain.
And that’s what poverty or trauma can do to us. Like Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, his fellow prisoners in the concentration camps, severely underfed and malnourished, often dreamed of food and soup and debated about recipes. Their dreams were shaped by what they lacked.
That line hit me. Because many of us dream not from vision, but from the void. From what we’ve been denied. From a desperate need to feel safe, loved, and seen.
We don’t choose our dreams; we are driven by them.
But It Doesn’t Have to Stay That Way
The turning point is when you stop living out of compulsion and start creating from clarity.
When you choose your dream not to prove something, but to live something.
When you stop running from a painful past, and start walking towards a meaningful future.
When your dream is no longer a reaction, but a revelation.
So how do you choose your dream, consciously, courageously, and truthfully?
Here are some practical steps to help you begin:
1. Heal the Inner Child Who Thought Survival Was All That Mattered
- Spend time with your story. Journal about your earliest memories of success, failure, love, and belonging.
- Speak kindly to the younger you. Acknowledge their pain and survival. Let them know they are safe now.
- Work with a therapist, coach, or healing community if possible. Emotional safety is the soil for dream clarity.
2. Challenge the Belief That You’re Only Worthy if You Achieve
- Notice when you tie your identity to performance.
- Practice being rather than doing.
- Give yourself permission to rest, to play, to enjoy, without guilt. Worth isn’t earned; it’s recognized.
3. Create Emotional Safety to Explore What You Really Want
- Ask: “If no one judged me, if money wasn’t an issue, if I was deeply loved, what would I do with my life?”
- Try new things. Experiment. Get curious again. The real dream often reveals itself in moments of freedom.
- Surround yourself with people who honor your essence, not just your hustle.
4. Live from Purpose, Not Pressure
- Reflect on the impact you want to make in the world, beyond your title or income.
- Ask: “What pain have I known that I’d like to help others heal from?”
- Let your dream emerge from service, not just ambition.
5. Write Your Own Script
- Get off autopilot. Take the pen back from society, from culture, from fear.
- Define what success, greatness, and fulfillment mean to you.
- Then start living in alignment with that, even if it’s slow, quiet, and simple.
In Conclusion
Many of us didn’t choose our dreams, we inherited them.
We were conditioned to survive, to perform, to “make it”, not to feel, explore, and choose.
But it’s never too late.
You can pause. Reflect. Heal. Reimagine.
You can say no to the old scripts, and yes to your soul.
You can begin to choose your dream, not to be somebody, but to be yourself.
And that, my friend, is the most courageous dream of all.