I've been raised in a family where everyone gave up on everything they wanted in order to follow the straight path society forced them to believe it's the right way of doing things. They never tried to follow their dreams and if I ask any of them, they wouldn't even know what they like doing, and they could barely say what they're good at.
One of the best examples are my parents. My mother wanted to be a waitress when she was young, and because of a teacher that didn't let her pass an exam when he heard her dream, she decided to give up and get whatever job she could in order to get money. My father didn't even try, and he went straight for a job that paid him well enough.
That seemed like a really good idea back then, but now, they are both going to jobs they completely hate, just to get some money at the end of the month. They come home pretty late, pretty tired, and they are constantly complaining about how hard life is and how much they hate what they do.
Because of that I decided to go against the rules and not give up on my dreams and on the things I like just to get money and to "survive", like my entire family did. However, I realized after working on all kind of things and after seeing people destroy the dream they so much fought for, that sometimes, you just need to give up.
And I don't mean that you should give up on everything you do or that you should do what everybody does in order to survive and to have enough money to buy food. When I'm saying "giving up", I mean not doing something that may hurt your content, just because you're stubborn and you believe that everybody except you is stupid.
I've seen that happen many times, especially on YouTube. Content creators were so sure that their content is great that they ignored all the people who told them otherwise, all the fans that gave them negative feedback on their content, and they just did whatever they wanted until finally there was no one else to watch the low quality content they were creating.
We are told, from the moment we start working on something we like, that it doesn't matter what people say and that we should just do our thing, because that's truly important. However, we're not told that sometimes, what we do is not completely okay, and that while our dream is something worth fighting for, the things we do for that dream may actually destroy what we so much want.
There is a big difference between a person who works really hard to create the content his or her clients or fans want, and to always improve their work listening to all the feedback they get, and a person who does whatever he or she wants, not carrying what anybody says, thinking that if you don't like their content it's your fault, not theirs.
I've seen a lot of people loosing all the things they worked so hard to accomplish because of that kind of attitude, and I try my best to avoid it. Yes, your dream is important and yes, the things you're working on have a meaning to you, but you need to find the balance between doing what you like, the way you want, and providing the kind of content people would be willing to consume.
You need to make sure that the people who follow you, who consume your content and who support you, love what you do. You need to know when to give up on the content that nobody wants, and start doing something new that both you and your followers like. Your future, and most importantly, your dream, depend on your ability to give up on the things that slow you down, and focus on those that help you move forward.
