Focusing, or Limiting?

For a while, I've been wondering "What took me so long?" about the whole adulthood gig. One of the reasons, I think, is because I've long been smitten by the incredible choices available to me. Should I live in Asia, or North America, or Europe? (Or somewhere else - I was seriously planning to move to Cuba in spring of 2010. So much so, that I was actually googling apartments. Which, incidentally, is more foresight than I've had for most of my moves). Should I be a writer, an academic, a marketeer, a professional horseback rider or a music promoter or ... something else?

All of this was great when it was either daydreams - as when I was a child - or when I felt I had unlimited time and absolutely no sense of consequences. (That would be... until about six months ago. Oops.). And I've come to a realize a couple of things about this approach - that I don't tend to do much at all, because I either can't choose or I stop doing things when they get difficult, or I end up having surface knowledge of lots of things and very little specialised knowledge. (The latter is known as "being a journalist". Apart from the fact that journalists actually have to write lots. Which I quit doing a couple of years ago.).

But what I like about that approach, that fluid, liquidy approach to what I do and where I live and who I am, is that it means I still believe that daydreams and desires are totally valid. And I want to be that - both for myself, and for other people.

Earlier today, I was talking to a friend of mine, who is normally one of those great and supportive and interesting people. Love this girl. But I've noticed something about her. She's NOT supportive of her friends when it comes to trying to break into the entertainment industry. I've heard her recount multiple reasons for why they shouldn't do it, why they're not good enough, talented enough, driven enough, too old, unwilling to train, all sorts of totally legitimate reasons...

But they're not the REAL reason why she doesn't think they can do things. She thinks they can't because SHE doesn't. Not "can't" - "doesn't". She's a deeply talented musician herself, but has so much anxiety built up around making music that she can barely pick up her guitar. So she seems to have decided that 'this is it' - the business she operates is going really well, even though she's not super happy doing it, and her private life is going from strength to strength. But she's disappointed - maybe she doesn't know it, but I do.

I'm not judging her for this; maybe she'll work it out, maybe she'll be happy doing what she does, maybe she's right and her other friends will either man up and go on with what they want to do, or maybe they legitimately aren't good enough - but I realised that that's not what I want for myself. I want to focus without limiting; myself, and others. I want to be someone who has those daydreams and encourages them in others, while actually making them happen - so my adult world is more like daydreams, rather than daydreams being lost to the "adult" world.