What dreams to follow and why follow them?

[MentalDiscomfort]

Before you read this; Short text of my problem. If you don't want to read, that's ok. But if you decide to give your opinion back to me, please read the entire text and not just the tl;dr. Thank you.

So around a month ago I had one of these moments in my life where I felt I had to figure out what to do with my life before my time starts running out.

FYI I'm 21 atm. I know I'm still young but it's bothering me to the extent where I'm depressed and scared all the time because I'm afraid I won't ever figure out what to do.

First of all I'm a person who likes to do everything, I get easily influenced by pretty much everything so I almost feel like I want to become professional in every single aspect of every single hobby I've ever had or I'm going to have.

My biggest passions in my life to this point have been gaming and music. I'm fairly sure that what I decide on for my 'main' dream will have something to do with either of those. But I will also say something later on in this post about why I'm not sure about doing it and why I'm feeling so confused.

Gaming - I started my somewhat hardcore gaming around the age of 13. I finally got 24/7 access to a computer and it became my new life. I've been playing a massive amount of MMORPG games out there and I feel like I've achieved more in these games than what I've done IRL, and not to mention I've enjoyed it a lot more. Some if not most of my fondest memories to this day are from games. Nostalgic as hell, they are. I have also had my fun with video& picture editing, events and contests that include real money but I'm not sure if this is it.

Why not go for gaming?
Well that's it, I really want to. But some of my not-so-good human traits are that I'm a very proud and unintelligent person. I do what I think others expect from me rather than doing what I feel like doing. I always try to be the perfect person in front of someone else, resulting me to have a thousand different personalities. Now having this said gaming have been my biggest joy in life until now, but the reason I haven't done anything serious about it is because I'm afraid of being seen as a 'uncool' person. Taken from the book of society, gaming 24/7 is something a nolifer and idiot would do, and I don't want to be seen as that kind of person. But working as a sound technician, producing music or playing in a band is a lot more original, so it seem like a much better fit for me even though It's not what I really want. I just kinda want it because of all the respect and fame you get.

Music - I'm not sure if I should say it's my second biggest passion or if it's on the same line as gaming, because I could for sure not live without it but it doesn't take up as much time because I can listen to music while doing other stuff, can't I? Well, a couple of years ago I also bought my first acoustic guitar, then shortly later my first el-guitar. I bought the el-guitar because it looked cool, not because it was good. It was a BC Rich Warlock NJ Deluxe, and I loved it. I played a lot in the start, but since I was living with my poor family and didn't have my own room, I didn't get as much time on it as I wanted. I could NEVER spend hours practice while there are other people in the room listening, I would be too shy and scared of that, even if it's my own family. So I stopped playing. Around one month ago, I bought my first keyboard. This was a MIDI-keyboard I could plug into the computer and use headset so I didn't have to be afraid of others listening anymore, and I could even play late after midnight. I'm still playing now after a month and I like it a lot, I think I can get a lot better and keep playing for years if I just manage to keep my spirit up.

Second part is that I want to be a producer. But I'm not really sure if I want to be a producer, so what the hell does that mean?

When I listen to music I get so emotional and into it. I close my eyes, wave my arms around and pretend like I'm in another world. The first time I figured out I wanted to make my own music was after discovering TSFH - Two Steps From Hell, a trailer music company making trailer music for well... trailers. But I'm sure they have songs for movies and games aswell. The choruses in these songs were so epic and I started dreaming about how it would be my biggest dream ever to be able to create such music and share it with the world. I mean, just listening to it was amazing, sharing it with my friends even more amazing. Creating it myself, would be unbelivable. But why didn't I do it? I give up easily.. I have no self esteem, I don't believe in my self, I'm inpatient and I can't picture myself being able to do anything great. I even recently started listening to a lot of electro and got this feeling all over again, only this time I actually tried to fool around a bit. I downloaded Ableton and FL Studio and tried to learn as much as I can, but I got so easily bored.

If there's something you see as one of your biggest dreams, it could barely fit into your imagination because it's too great. But when it comes to learning it, and working with it, it doesn't seem fun at all. You get bored so fast, you feel like you're doing everything alone, you suddenly feel like you're never gonna finish it and in the end you just quit. Is this really a dream? If you have a dream you want to accomplish, then why is it so hard to do? Is it because I'm bad at it, and it's just difficult in the start? Or is it because I'm satisfied with what's already out there? I don't know... And when it comes back to the gaming, I never saw anything more to it, I never thought it could be more than just 'gaming'. But now I feel like gaming is the only thing I could do. Making a youtube channel to make videos, start streaming, it's the only thing I have confidence in, because I've been doing it for so many years, I know I could do great. But why won't I? Because I'm afraid of becoming that guy I actually want to be, but other people might not like.

TBH I barely know what I'm saying myself atm, so dont sweat it if you're confused. I might change the text later on aswell, if I change my mind about anything.

TLDR;I love both gaming and music, but I don't know what I want to give it all in for. I feel most confident about gaming, and I think I could do great but I'm afraid of being a too shut-in person not doing anything respectful like playing an instrument or becoming a known athlete. I have always loved music aswell, and becoming a componist/producer seemed like my biggest passion, but I get too bored and I don't like doing it.

In the sum-up I atm play the piano, work and do stuff with friends. It's annoying the hell out of me not being able to know what I want to do, so I end up doing nothing. What do you think I should aim for, how do I find out? Should I go for what I like doing or should I go for what I find to be my biggest dream, but atm too hard to accomplish? I hope you atleast read the tl;dr so I can get some serious inputs. Thanks in advance!

 

[LonesomeLoner]

I'm 25 and still am unsure what to do in my life. You're not alone.

Music seems to be a better way forward, even if it's just a hobby. I'd say just go with what you feel is most comfortable for you

 

[Tealeaf]

I would say to go for what's satisfying. Do a lot of stuff. Explore. Expand. Maybe years from now you'll be teaching music to kids or something instead of composing.

When you say you want to focus on gaming as your "goal", I'm imagining pro gaming which sucks up a massive amount of time from someone's life. There are gaming blogs, gaming groups, and other things that might be more rewarding if you don't want to do the amount of work required to be at the top of your game for competitions. People do still get together for tabletop, you know.

I firmly believe intelligence is flexible, anyway. Stupidity is mostly a closed mind, an inflexible view, or being too easily intimidated.

 

[ladyforsaken]

I'm not sure if I can relate, but I felt like I get you when you said:

So around a month ago I had one of these moments in my life where I felt I had to figure out what to do with my life before my time starts running out.

I'm turning 26 soon and I feel like I'm running out of time to do all the things I want to do, to move out of my location and start a new life afresh, to have loads of pets and start a family and have babies on top of all the things I wanna do out of my interests.

It seems like you're in a dilemma of what you should pursue. I think when I was 21, I never really knew what I wanted to do, heck, even now I'm not even sure.

I'll say you do the thing that you enjoy doing most, even if it's really difficult to get to it, you can at least get started to work towards it from now on, rather than you start later. You're young, bright and full of energy, it's the best time to start preparing for where you'd like to be in the future.

As for me, I certainly feel I'm a little late, at almost 26 I am only starting to actually live...

I wish you good luck though, keep us updated.

 

[MentalDiscomfort]

Thanks for the replies.

The reason I feel I've wasted too much time is because I finished school 3 years ago. My friends got all respectful jobs on oil rigs, container ships etc. while I ended up at home because I was too afraid and shy to apply for jobs. I have the same education as them, but I never got out there, didn't even try.

Now I've been sitting at home for 3 years playing games and concentrating on hobbies, like playing the guitar, piano etc. but it's not enough, it's not gonna get me a real job unless I go 110% in for one specific hobby.

As for the gaming I don't want to be a professional gamer only, playing games isn't the only thing I want to do. I would like to start out a YT channel, make videos and just get out there. I also wanted to apply at mmohut as a game reviewer for MMORPG's but sadly the owner sold his company and I don't really want anything to do with the new people behind it. There are actually many things I could do when it comes to gaming, it's just that it's not as special as the other things I have in mind.

I would love to start slowly on my way towards working with music, but it seems that everytime I sit down and try to learn something I give up after a very short time. Tho the reason I won't give up on it yet is because it has a lot to do with my health problems, so I have a feeling I'd have a better chance if I got all that sorted out. I have a lot of problems with brain fog, headaches, dizziness and even fainting. I feel like I'm never really awake and I can't for the love of god concentrate on anything for more than 5minutes, but if I manage to solve these problems and manage to get in on the path of a healthy lifestyle I feel I would be able to do anything.

 

[Nitramici]

This is just my opinion from my own experience, but don't put too much pressure into finding a job in something you're passionate about. A job is just something you do that helps society in exchange for society helping you, and it can't be pleasant for everyone. It's a statistical impossibility. It should, of course, be (or rather, become) somewhat comfortable. But don't aim for the moon.

As for the youtube thing, it's kind of really luck-based and situational. Just search channels on youtube by typing "Let's play" and go check the 15th page of result; you'll easily find people who posted thousands of videos with a lot of work in them, yet very few views. Only a tiny handful makes it, it's almost like winning the lottery. Plus, there's no job security, etc. You could do it for fun, though, and see what happens.

As an anecdote, I once went to a career counsellor, she gave me a series of tests and the results were written in her face; I had really low "affinity" scores for every categories. Heh, oh well, you still gotta do something anyway.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, don't pressure yourself too much. Go for something you think you can do, and might end up being comfortable with. Maybe you'll even end up liking it! And if you end up hating it, try to put money on the side so you can quit after a while and find something else.

Or...ignore everything I said and just blast some Two Steps From Hell and enjoy, it's awesome! I don't really know what I'm talking about anyway, I just feel like I come from a similar place to yours and wanted to share my feelings on the topic.