Ryan McLean : Slightly Unconventional

Should You Listen To How People Tell You It Should Be

A lot of people will tell you a lot of things about how life should be. About how you can’t do this because of that and how you should do that because of this. I am slowly starting to realize that if you want to be someone who follows your dreams you can’t always listen to people telling you how it is.

If you are thinking that I am just having a whinge you are right. I get extremely frustrated with how small minded some people are. Just because everyone does things a certain way doesn’t mean that we should continue doing them that way.

There are a lot of big things I want to accomplish in the next 5 years so I have to be very very careful what I accept from people. I know there are a million reasons why I can’t achieve success but I also know there are a few reasons why I can. So I have to keep my ears and mind closed to the million reasons why not and only listen to the few reasons why I can succeed.

Plus even if what everyone said was true who could be happy settling for a life that is less than magnificent anyway? I don’t know about you but I want to get to the end of my life and know that I lived it. I want to be able to tell my children that they can do whatever they want, that they can follow their dreams because their dad did. Not tell them to work 9-5 to pay the bills, what kind of life is that?

When I tell people I am having a baby a lot of them say “You better get some sleep now, cos when the baby comes you wont get any”. That may be true for them but why should I accept that as fact for me? Sure I might not get as much sleep but I only work 2-3 days per week. Do the math, even with a baby that leaves a lot of time for sleeping.

Basically what I am raving on about is the fact that you choose your reality. What is fact for someone is only fact because they decided to believe it. If I want to decide differently and live differently then I can, so why bother telling me I can’t?



4 responses to “Should You Listen To How People Tell You It Should Be”

  1. Well, there’s following your dreams, and then there’s ignoring good advice. Sometimes people who have been there do actually know what they’re talking about. Where would we be if no one ever listened and learned from those who went before them? You need to distinguish the advice that’s come from experience instead of lumping it all in as coming from small minded people. (Hint: not everyone who disagrees with you is small minded.)

    • Ryan Mclean says:

      I will always listen to people who give out advice. More importantly (I think) I will do my best to look at their lives as well. If their lives don’t match up with what they are saying, then the advice is often useless cos they are just making it up. And if their lives are different from what I want then often their advice is no good for me because it will lead me to a life I don’t want.
      I listen to advice, and take it when it’s good and the person is good. For example I respect my bible study group leader in church, he rarely gives me advice but when he does it always matches up with the way he lives his life. So when he gives it I listen.

      I have nothing against people who think differently from me. I went through a phase where I was frustrated about it, but now I don’t care. What I don’t like is people who always wantto have some negative input into your life. They always want to give you advice about how bad something is or will be just because it was bad for them. Or that I “can’t” invest in my current financial position because they can’t see how it is possible.

      • It’s a good point you’ve made about looking at their lives. Look, some people are really conservative. Some are afraid. These are the ones that can’t imagine that what you’re trying to do will work. You can tell that from how they live, and they are the ones you want to avoid.

        I don’t mean to always sound like one of the negatives btw. I guess I’m coming at it 18 years further down the track and trying to point out that sometimes inexperience might blind you to some things. But if you can make it work, I’ll be right there cheering for you.

        • Ryan Mclean says:

          Sometimes I think we need inexperience to blind us, so that we can have a type of blind faith to go after what we want and get it.
          Like I said before, there are a million reasons why I can’t achieve what I want to achieve ad only a few reasons why I can. I purposely shut out the million reasons why I can’t because if I listen to them I may believe them and may fail to live the life of my dreams. So when you do give negative comments, I have to ignore them, even if it comes from 18 years down the track, because I don’t have the luxury of looking at and thinking about why it won’t work. If I want to succeed I can ONLY look at why I will work. But thankyou for your input. I do love your comments

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