If you dare to have dreams, or worse, if you dare to start acting on your dreams, then at some point somebody will tell you to get your head out of the clouds. To come back down to Earth. That you need to be more “realistic.”
They might even do it from a good place, like not wanting to see you get hurt or be disappointed. Or they might do it from a bad place, like feeling threatened at the thought of your dream actually coming true for you. But from wherever they do it, the intention is always the same: to knock you down a peg, to put you in your place, to stop you getting above your station.
Now, I could simply say “don’t listen to them.” But (a) that’s blindingly obvious, and (b) it doesn’t get to the root of the problem. Because the root of the problem isn’t that these people try to tamp down your ambitions and make you conform. That’s bad enough. No, the root of the problem is that they attempt to paint you and your worldview as naive and cock-eyed, and themselves and their worldview as rational and realistic. And sometimes they do it so convincingly that you are tempted to fall for it.
DON’T. Don’t fall for it.
Negative people are not more realistic than positive people. Pessemistic people are not more rational than optimistic people. If you have a dream and somebody tries to talk you out of having that dream, I’d say you now have a choice to make: the dream or the person. Because you can’t have both in your life.
I suggest you choose the dream. There are 7 billion people on this planet – you will never run out of people who want to encourage you and help you give the best you have to offer.
Don’t waste your time on people who just want to bring you down to their level.