Click, click, boom

I wonder what makes it click in someone’s head to say, "Fuck it" and live their dream. There was a time in my life when I was going to be famous. I was going to be the next big thing, the next voice the world loved and adored. I can remember the click for me when I first doubted, when I let another person's words creep into my dream. I look back on it now, at the seeds of doubt that were sewn, and I realize it was deliberate. This person was my teacher, my mentor. He had been in the "business" since he was 19. He struggled, starved, and dreamed but wound up teaching brats. They were Brats with parents that had money to burn. They were Brats with entitlement and no real dose of reality. He had to test the thickness of our skin, to test our resolve, see how much it mattered. Some caved immediately, some of us kept going for a while but the tree of insecurity and anxiety grew inside of us. It grabbed a hold of me and planted itself deeply and eventually consumed me. Each new leaf, each new branch of my tree made the base that much bigger than before. I stopped singing but kept smiling so no one would notice. Some just kept marching on and they are still fighting for their dream. They reached that, "Fuck it" point. I am jealous in a lot of ways. I let me get me. I still wonder how their click happened and how I missed it.