B.E.L.I.E.V.E

You know, when you finally decide to listen to your heart and start doing something new in your life, you are afraid initially. Especially, when it’s something you have always loved to do. You are afraid of failure and criticisms and are dreadful that you might eventually give-up doing that thing.

Remember how that particular work never felt like a burden? How your passion, your dream always made you happy? You always thought that you were meant to do this in your life. It meant so much to you that you quit your job to pursue it or vented anger on people you love when they ignored it. It might have been difficult for you to start. But you believed everything would be okay somehow. You followed your heart finally. Bravo! You’re now doing what you’ve always loved to do. You may feel like dreams turning into reality.

However, not everyone is lucky to have the cloud-nine feeling forever. For some, it may feel like the reality is tough to accept. This isn’t easy road, you realize. The reality that the ones you thought would encourage you on achieving your dream actually don’t care about it; the fact that they don’t even congratulate you on starting this new journey cripples you. As you look back you realize it isn’t the first time this thing is happening. “Maybe I am not good at it” you had concluded before. OR “Maybe they are busy in their own work. It’s a busy age indeed”; or simply, “Maybe they didn’t see it. I think too much.” You had convinced yourself. So, you decided to try one more time; but that one time turned to several times already. And the thing is you’ve already let the people know how much their attention mean to your work. But still things are repeating.

“I was always worse at it” you resort to it. Now, you just feel disgusted about your work. The work you thought you excelled at looks pathetic today. “I failed. I’m a failure” you repeat this to yourself again and again. “Poor you” you pity yourself. You hate this feeling. Now you don’t want to put any effort anymore. After few weeks or few months of disgust you decide to move on away from that. Promise yourself never to turn back to that thing. It was all illusion. “I’m not good at anything” you feel helpless.

A dream shattered. A passion crushed. A hope lost.

You know when someone dreams about anything, they always look for his/her close ones to support him/her. Few simple words of encouragement would mean a lot to that dream. With words of encouragement, I mean positive or negative comments, advice, suggestions, constructive criticism, you see anything. Let it not go ignored. Maybe that would mean wasting 1-3 minutes of your precious time. But those few minutes would mean much bigger for someone you care, for someone who dreams.  

This is a story of everyone one way or the other. And it’s quite relatable to me as well. I know I’m pathetic at photography, but it has given me immense happiness. From the day I learnt photography as a source of my happiness to this day, I have encountered hundreds of times the “I want to give-up” feeling. But somehow I don’t do so. And I feel grateful about it. Maybe photography isn’t the thing I want to pursue as my career but it’s a reason I’m happy for now. And still at times I feel hopeless about my work. I wish sometimes that particular person would drop in a few words about my work, I wish more people would share enthusiasm for my work, I wish I was better, I wish I had more followers or more likes and so on. But most of the time that isn’t the case.

Well in this case, I guess I’m lucky I have few people around me who have been there through all and I know I can always count on them. I guess somehow they help me see a ray of hope on the other side of the tunnel and this is how it is supposed to work.

Nevertheless, in this journey of following your heart and chasing your dreams we find who are worth keeping and who we should let go. You know someone who has time for your work and who respects your passion. While waiting a particular group of people to validate your dreams you may miss out people who wait to see more of your work. So, stop letting wrong people rip off your dreams and keep following your heart. Believe in yourself and believe in those who you care.

I never saw it coming, but now that it has, I want to take it forward.

18^th September 2016