‘Follow Your Dreams’ is Bad Advice

We make countless decisions every day, most of which are done so unconsciously and without much deliberate thought. Some decisions are trivial, and are not worth the allocation of much time or cognitive effort to resolve; some decisions are perceived as important, and therefore require more time and cognitive effort to resolve. There is a large body of scientific research to suggest that trivial decisions are made through quick, emotional, and heuristic (rule-based) unconscious mental processes, while more important decisions are made through slow, deliberate, conscious mental processes. Of course, when we feel like we do not have enough information about a decision, we seek out advice from others whom we deem to be a better authority on the matter — some research has suggested that, on average, about a quarter of people report making at least two to three decisions on behalf of others in a single week. 

Much like how our approach to a decision differs if the decision is deemed important or insignificant, decisions we make for ourselves often differ from the advice we give to someone in the same situation. This is not a product of deliberate malicious intention, but simply that we conceptualise the scenario at differing cognitive levels. The most compelling explanation for this phenomenon, to me at least, is that proposed by construal-level theory, which suggests that the differences in how we think about differing scenarios stem from the degree to which the scenario is abstracted from ourselves. In construal-level theory, we use ourselves as a frame of reference in navigating the ‘psychological distance’ between ourselves and more abstract situations, and this psychological ‘distance’ can be characterised in terms of time, space, or interpersonal distance. As we travel further in psychological distance, and into greater abstraction from our own experience, there is a gradual change in how we think about the situation. If the distance is smaller, for instance, we think of decisions in more pragmatic terms because such a situation is closer to ourselves and thus easier to conceptualise in high detail. If the distance is larger, on the other hand, we think in more idealistic terms, construing the situation at a level of greater abstraction from our own experiences which, in turn, leads to higher-order thinking (idealism) that is more salient at this level. 

The difference between what people actually do and the advice they provide to others calls into question the utility of advice itself. Of course, it is still related to their own personal experiences as this is always used as a frame of reference, so it is certainly not entirely worthless. However, advice should never be blindly heeded, even from those whom we are sure are both qualified to give it and have our best interests at heart. So, with this established, it is worth returning to the raison d'être of why being told to ‘follow’ your dreams is bad advice. 

To ‘follow one’s dreams’, for a start, is the very definition of idealism — devoid of any practical considerations. Indeed, it is often rare for people who espouse such guidance to provide any practical steps of how to achieve a said dream, alongside how to avoid the likelihood of failure at each step of achieving the said dream. If anything, when giving advice, the routes one must take and the methods one must use in maintaining one’s course are the most important aspects to consider when constructing a plan for the future. Thus, to pursue a misguided aim and fail can be deeply demoralising. Our self-esteem is intrinsically tied to our plans for the future and to try and fail in achieving one’s ‘dreams’ can harm our well-being significantly more so than the harm that would come from not trying at all — though inaction, of course, is still not desirable either. 

What I believe is the most compelling argument against the myopic action of simply ‘following one’s dreams’ is that it does not take into account the ever-developing and changing nature of being a human being. If you are ‘living correctly’, if you will, you will be continuously focusing on bettering yourself and repeatedly reevaluating your position in the world as a result. This cycle of self-improvement and re-evaluation serves the role of assessing the impact of your personal developments and whether your relationship with the external world needs readjusting. If we look back in time at our own desires, we can see that as we developed as a person, what we desired changed alongside us. To use anecdotes from my own life, when I was very young, I wanted to be a dinosaur, then a palaeontologist, and then a wildlife photographer. Going into my teenage years, I wanted to become a professional skateboarder, then a musician, and then a historian. Into adulthood, I wanted to be a professor of psychology. Immediately after going through an undergraduate degree, and then a masters degree, however, I decided that academia was not for me, and I finally came to realise that I’d rather be a political journalist, which, thankfully, I am. This was not my dream before attending university, but only after going through that experience did I realise that it was what I wanted to do. In retrospect, to underscore any point in time and concretely say that ‘this is what I want to be’ would clearly be naive. By the time I had come to self-actualise and consolidate the progress I had made towards my prior desires, I had changed as a person to the extent that my desired career path had changed. As the revered 18th-century Scottish poet Robert Burns puts it in his poem To a Mouse:

“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

          Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

          For promis’d joy!”

In a sentence, our hubris in assuming what we want to do in the future is more likely to harm us than help us. We should certainly set goals for ourselves and be ambitious, but we should also avoid deluding ourselves into believing that we know what our future self will want. Those who seem to fall most afoul of this naivety most often are those involved in schooling — both teachers and students. Teachers encourage students to go to university, as they themselves did, and large numbers appear to follow that advice. Nevertheless, over a third of university students in Britain say they regret going upon completing their degrees, while just under half say they could have gotten to the same point in their lives without their degree. In the modern Western world, there seems to exist an opinion that so-called ‘white-collar’ office jobs are somehow more fulfilling than more traditional ‘blue-collar’ jobs — a view I believe to be unsubstantiated. Perhaps if these disheartened university students had instead tried their hand at a trade, they would have found greater fulfilment in spite of what they might have presumed would not have been the case prior.

Plan for the future, be ambitious, develop yourself, but do not delude yourself with distant dreams. Work on what gives you meaning and fulfilment in the present, and see where it leads you and, hopefully, things will turn out much better for you.