Dreams are beautiful but expensive

It is somehow instilled within everyone that dreams are beautiful things.

Not everyone may have the same definition of what a dream is, but I know for sure that those who pursue theirs set themselves apart from those who remain content with merely dreaming. The stories they carry, the sacrifices, setbacks, and small victories, are what make dreams beautiful.

Before graduating last year, I had always imagined myself entering law school. It wasn’t just a passing thought; it was a future I had quietly built in my mind. But reality had other plans. No one would be paying for my education, and my family had already given more than they could just to help me finish college.

Sometimes I wonder how different things would have been had I been born into a family that could comfortably afford higher education. I imagine studying without calculating every expense, without worrying about tuition, books, transportation, or whether I would have to work while earning a degree. It is a privilege many people have, yet one I could only imagine.

After graduation, the practical choice was clear. I needed to find a job. Not to get ahead, but simply to support myself.

Almost 10 months into my first job, I decided to take the law school entrance exam. Not because I had finally saved enough money. In truth, I hadn’t. If anything, I had earned more experience than savings. I simply decided that some dreams deserve at least one honest attempt.

At that point, I had also resigned from my job without another one waiting. For weeks, sleep became difficult. Up until now, I carry uncertainty every day.

Then the results came.

I passed.

For a brief moment, I allowed myself to celebrate.

Then my mother asked, “Pangalaam pag-enroll mo?” (“Where will you get the money to enroll?”)

It was only one question, but it carried the weight of everything that came after enrollment. Tuition, books, daily expenses, transportation, and all the unseen costs of pursuing a dream.

I don’t blame my mother.

She wasn’t discouraging me. She was asking the question that reality had been waiting to ask all along.

I don’t blame my family either. They have already sacrificed enough to bring me this far. Neither do I blame myself for dreaming beyond what our circumstances could easily afford.

That was when I realized that dreams are beautiful, but they are also expensive. And when I say expensive, I mean it literally.

Dreams come with a price tag and everything that comes with it.

Dreams ask for certainty before they promise anything in return. They ask for sleepless nights, difficult choices, missed opportunities, and quiet moments of doubt. Sometimes they ask us to gamble on ourselves without any assurance that everything will work out.

There is a strange loneliness in wanting something deeply.

People admire ambition, but they rarely see the conversations we have with ourselves at night. They don’t see the calculations behind every application, every decision to stay or leave a job, every postponed plan because reality simply refuses to cooperate.

Perhaps this is why so many people as young as I am are exhausted.

We live in a generation that celebrates perseverance, yet often overlooks the unequal starting lines from which people begin. We applaud those who chase their dreams but rarely acknowledge that some dreams demand far greater sacrifices depending on the life one is born into.

Dreams become deadlines.

Passion becomes productivity.

Rest begins to feel like guilt.

Somewhere along the way, we start believing that exhaustion is proof that we care enough.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m being foolish for risking everything in trying to reach a dream that is beyond my grasp and that my circumstances were never meant to make easy.

I still believe in ambition. I still believe that dreams are worth pursuing. But I wish they didn’t require us to measure our worth by how much we can endure. Most of all, I wish dreams asked less of us.

Because life is happening now. Not only after acceptance letters, promotions, licenses, or titles.

The people we love, the conversations we have, the quiet afternoons we often dismiss as unproductive, these are not interruptions to our dreams. They are part of the lives our dreams are supposed to enrich.

So yes, I still have a dream to catch. Perhaps not today. Perhaps not as quickly as I once imagined.

But I have learned that delaying a dream is different from abandoning one. And if there is one thing I hope every person remembers, it is this: Our circumstances may determine how difficult the journey becomes, but they should never be the measure of whether our dreams are worth having.

Because perhaps the greatest tragedy isn’t failing to reach a dream. It’s believing that we were never allowed to dream in the first place.

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Don Lj Q. Martinez, 23, is a communication graduate of Mariano Marcos State University.