Arrogant Idealism

One of the things I love about being 22 is the fact that when I say I have dreams and goals for my life, people don't doubt me automatically: I'm still young enough to see them through to fruition. Give me a few years and I'm sure people will start looking at me like I'm insane, or like I'm a bum who needs to get a job and introduce myself to reality. My roommate and I spent quite a bit of time discussing idealism. Our main concern with graduation was the fact that we had to enter the forbidden "real world" and start being logical and responsible and give up the notion that life could be all we wanted it to be. So when does reality kick in and idealism get kicked to the curb? I've met adults who have said to me "Oh wow, to be 22 again", in a whistful tone that can only insinuate that I know something or think something that somewhere along the way they have lost. Or that I'm only 22 and I still have time to make my dreams a reality. So where does that all go wrong? When do our dreams go from being possible to irrational? Does it all stop when the bills start piling up? Does idealism take a back seat to logical decisions when we start to weigh just what's important in life? And what exactly is important? What are our priorities and when do they start to shift? For a fleeting moment in my college career I was an English major (a field I quickly abandoned the minute the emo intellectual kid in the corner started reading poems to us about his toothbrush) and we were inundated with prose about lost dreams, abandoned hopes, wishes unfulfilled, and lives that were completely empty because of the aformentioned circumstances. But I have to sit and wonder: when do these hopes get tossed to the wayside and where does our passion for life go? Do our goals change? And if they do, why do we settle for goals that don't make us anywhere near as happy as we could be if we had just kept trying, just given things a little more effort? Those who are successful are those who never give up, never give in to failure, who keep trying even when everyone in the world says sit down and shut up. So what does it take? I've always thought of myself as possesing a sort of confidence that almost borders on arrogance. The normal characteristics associated with being a girl (for example, modesty) have never wasted their time on me, I've more closely identified with the supreme arrogance that I can only associate with guys: that idea that everything I touch could turn to gold and everything I say is probably right because it's coming out of my mouth. Thus this blog. I didn't study subjects in school that made sense or that would guarantee me a job or money right after graduation. Instead I turned to more fanciful subjects and usually just ignored school altogether, instead focusing on my social life and relationships that I deemed more valuable or practical than an education. For me, education took place more outside the classroom than in. Yet, even though I barely graduated and with no honors to speak of, with no future plans or concrete paths set for me to walk on, I still think I'm going to be a huge success. For some reason, I still think that everything is going to work out fabulously for me, that I'll be outstandingly wealthy and prosperous and that nothing can hold me down. Me. Who has no job and should be panicking at the thought of bills and rent payments and the cost of food or gas, here I sit, cool as that cliched cucumber (lord, it must be completely frozen by now) and I have not a worry in the world. So when does my idealism come crashing down around me? I don't fear authority (another problem with my arrogant psyche) and I don't think that someone banging down my door to collect for my cell phone bill is going to phase me. I just don't see what the big deal is. SO WHEN DOES MY IDEALISM END? Perhaps what I have is the making of an actual success story. Perhaps the secret to it all is some sort of irrational, arrogant idealism that doesn't get squashed by the mudane tasks of day to day living. Sure, I'm still going to be over the moon when I get the call that someone wants to pay me for some sort of skill that I possess, but only because I realize that that is just a stepping stone to what I actually perceive my life's goal to be. And there isn't a stopping point until that goal is sitting in front of me, toasting my success with a cold beer and a thousand of my closest friends. So logic be damned and let idealism rage like it's 2009. I'm bound and determined to not eat my words in ten years, so let this rant be a promise: I will be a success, if i have to claw my way through the trenches the whole way there, I will see my goals through to the end. As for now, I'm still waiting by the phone, hoping to hear those phantom words... "You're hired!"