# Is the "pursue your dreams" thing a little overblown? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 19, 2009, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pursue-your-dreams-thing-a-little-overblown/514263 "2009-10-19T00:37:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pursue-your-dreams-thing-a-little-overblown/514263/101 "2009-10-21T12:55:26Z")
> [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](#): > > The problem is–and this is going to sound arrogant–is that I’m really, really damn smart. National Merit Scholar, won writing awards in high school, AP Classes, OMG smart. And so, growing up–and even now–I have had no shortage of people who’ve been wanting to tell me what, exactly, I should be doing with my life. Be a doctor, be a journalist, be a lawyer, do technical writing, be a famous novelist, go into finance, be a scientist–blah blah blah blah blah. I know what you’re saying. You know you’re not literally saying you’re the smartest person in the world, or anywhere _near_ it. But you do have a higher intelligence and many people (parents, other relatives, teachers, etc.) noticed it. These people then think you’d be wasting your life if you didn’t use that intelligence in the “right” way (aka - what they think you should do). I’m in a similar boat. To my parents, using my intelligence meant going to college for something “good” like Computer Science (which I majored in), Engineering, Math, something like that. Then get a job in one of those kinds of fields. _That’s_ a smart job, that’s something you should do. Thing is, the intelligence I have is much, _much_ more on the verbal/language/visual side. I’d consistently score in the 99th percentile for those areas in standardized tests and my math would (comparatively) nosedive. But for some reason, many people don’t think this is good or useful intelligence. Smart == science, engineering or business to many. And yes, it’s obviously your life, but when you hear, over and over and over and over, from _everyone_ in a position of authority that you need to do X, Y or Z and you actually want to do A, B or C, it’s very hard to go against what’s been drilled into you. I’m in IT right now and honestly I hate it. It’s not what I want to do; it’s not where I want to be. But it’s computers and it’s in a corporate office, so it’s “a good job”. I’ve totally internalized so many of these pressures that the idea of trying to do what I actually _want_ to do makes me feel like I’d be giving up and wasting opportunities. I have to fight that internal battle constantly and it’s going to be a bit before I can finally not worry about what others think. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pursue-your-dreams-thing-a-little-overblown/514263/102 "2009-10-21T14:50:32Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Considering there are less than a thousand billionares on the planet and most are industrialists and entrepreneurs, I don’t think that’s technically correct. You may have to be satisfied just getting by on tens of millions of dollars. There’s one dude from New Orleans whose name I have forgotten who made over a billion on a case, maybe that doesn’t make him personally a billionaire but his firm’s payout on one case or a couple big ones netted them over a billion. I saw him on the BBC documentary, “The Ascent of Money”, by Niall Ferguson. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-pursue-your-dreams-thing-a-little-overblown/514263.md?page=5)