“My friends tell me I’m good!”
“I’m always singing for my family.”
“My mom tells me I could be the next American Idol.”
Well, your mom has lied to you my friend.
American Idol has done a lot of good and a lot of harm. Mostly good. The harm is this: young people are led to believe they really can be anything. Which is not true. I will never be a professional basketball player. Even if that’s my dream. Cause I’m not tall enough nor athletic enough. I will never be an artist. Even if that’s my dream. Cause I can’t draw. If I’m on your team in Pictionary and the answer is not “stick figure, house, smiley face, or sunshine”, we’re not getting that point. We’re going to lose. Even if I took a lot of art classes, read a lot, was tutored 1-on-1 by Van Gogh, I’m not going to make it as an artist. Maybe I would move from a 3 rating to a 5 (out of 20). That is what we classify as a hobby. There is something that everyone “feels alive” when they do. Now this can be a hobby or it can be a career. I think that depends on if you are starting as a 3 or a 17 natural talent rating. Then enters the role of hard work—of grinding. Nobody can be great at anything without hard work, no matter the amount of raw talent.
Now let’s not blame this completely on American Idol. It has a lot of contributing factors: everyone getting a trophy, no losers, no one being said no to growing up, hearing “if you can dream it, you can do it.” You can’t be anything you want to be. Because you were made with certain gifts, talents, and abilities and if these don’t match your dream, you’re not going to get very far. Just ask those terrible auditions from AI (like William Hung from the picture above). As they say through tears: “My aunt said I was great. My friends said I was really good.” Well, you have terrible friends.
But you can be what you were meant to be. And everyone is destined for greatness.
You can have any hobbies you want but to “live out your dream” and become whatever you want is actually a lie. And pushing this ideology has done our young people a disservice.
So continue to dream big. Pay attention to clues that show you what your dreams should be. They can be signposts as to what you are meant to do.