Dreams, Ambitions and Shamelessly Hustling for Them

​Hello everyone, It's Jen here with another mildly odd set of musings that occurred to me recently. I hope you enjoy; There are an infinite number of seconds and minutes left in each of our lives. Whilst the time will come for all of us to die, we can't pinpoint the exact day and time. So it may as well be an infinite life. We use labels and milestones to construct age, when it is simply that - a construct. We're a combination of moments rushing into each other which are only separable in our memories by what stands out to us the most; primary school, secondary school, exams, college, relationships, marriage. All of these things are the toothpick markers we stand up along our own mental timeline. I've always used a different one though and only recently have I come to terms with it. I use ambition and acquisition. It has also only been recently that I have stopped and realised that no, not everyone does this. Since the time when I decided I wanted to be a writer at approximately six years of age, I have looked in the mirror and stared at what could be, moreover what I could be. And I can no longer be caviller about the truth I saw there. For many years, I have told people my goal in life is to be a published author when that has only been part of the truth. Actually, that has only ever been the vaguest part of the truth. I want to be a successful author. I want success.Perhaps that makes me sound greedy. Or perhaps it makes me seem cunning as we humans have a strange view of ambition as on an equal plain as slyness. Yet, at twenty-one, I cannot pretend to be casual about my own life plan any longer. I no longer want to feel ashamed that I am determined, hardworking and tireless in creating paths towards my aims around the road blockages life erects. When I was six years old I never realised that the declaration of my dream was actually just a decision for a future guaranteed achievement. It is only guaranteed by my inability to stop until it is a realization. Each day I push myself out of bed and write through pain. If my fingers seize, I use voice recognition technology. Yet harder still to write through is the cutting pain of doubt that tickles the edge of my vision and can sometimes stop me writing for weeks at a time. What drives me to begin again and again, over and over, is the exceptionally powerful knowledge that I am on the edge of a monstrous mountain, readying myself for a climb. The sheer fact that I climb with the cool confidence that there is no one who should be in my place and no one better equipped for this than me, means that I fly up that mountain. I wrote a story when I was eleven years old as a Christmas present for my family inspired by a beautiful decoration of a deer adorned in red and gold. I was sitting on my bedroom floor in December of 2006, coughing with a bad flu, writing in my best cursive a story that made my heart beat wildly with excitement. When I wrote the first sentence of the tale I felt something inside of me unknot itself. It was as though I could be my own standing ovation and that clapping, full of my own self-trust and confidence was all that I needed to hear for the rest of my life. I feel it still, in everything I write. So why must we downplay our wishes? Why must we be told that we have 'notions' and are 'high and mighty' for sporting an untarnished self-belief in a world where people are competing to be the success story of the parishes, towns and counties? Well, we must do nothing. Answer to no one but yourself, and you are guaranteed to do yourself proud.No dream is big or small, nor is it truly a dream. It is simply an expression of what you're meant to be doing with your set of infinite moments. So, hustle and hustle well for your time to play in the big-time game where you make the rules. Simply by making the first move, you've already outdone your past self. And that's truly the only person you should be trying to outdo. Write soon,Jennifer x