It's Not You, It's Them

You will often find people who will try to discourage you from following your dream profession: "there is too many photographers!", "there is too many makeup artists!", "there is too many designers!", "there is so much competition, you will never make it!". You find them in your family, in your circle of friends, in your current job and even in your profession-to-be. But when I hear things like these I always wonder: has there ever been a time when any of these were true?

Back in the 90's when I was in the university (I will save you some time trying to figure out my age, I'm 40) I studied Systems Engineering and everyone would tell me "why are you studying that?? There is too many computer people out there, you will never find a job, nowadays even a 9-year-old can do your job!". But during the 20 years that I worked in IT I never struggled to find a job and there was always a place for me in that industry. And then I changed professions, I became a photographer, and when I started out in 2012 I found out that people would tell me the exact same things. Which made me realize that no matter which profession I chose or which decade I was living in, people will always say these things.

You see, in the early 1900's, when cameras started to be widely available to any enthusiast, the professional photographers of those days believed that now that anyone could take photos the industry was going to be doomed. There were going to be too many photographers. But nothing really bad happened and a hundred years later, when we look back at those days, we think of them as the glorious past of our profession.

So, why then, do we still find people who think this way? The answer is fear. On the one hand, you will find people who care for you and fear that you will fail and they will do anything to try to avoid that. On the other hand, you will find people who only care about themselves and fear that you will make it and they will do anything to discourage you from becoming their competitors. Either way, the fear is theirs, not yours, so don't let it affect you.

If you have a dream and you have a plan to make that dream come true, don't listen to anyone else. Just go for it. There has always been too many of every profession, but too few who actually are brave enough to follow their dreams.

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