🌍 Too Young. Too Idealistic. Too Alive.

A response to the ones who are told to shrink their dreams

A message came in recently that stopped me cold.

It was from someone young—16 years old—but you’d never guess it from the depth of what they wrote. They spoke of having dreams so big they scare people. They’d had a spiritual awakening at 14, but instead of being nurtured, it was dismissed. Surrounded by people dulled by bitterness and fear, they were told to be realistic. To grow up. To face “reality.”

And that reality, to them, looked like a life that doesn’t feel like living at all.

They wrote that their biggest fear wasn’t failure—it was settling. Dimming their fire. Growing into someone they never chose to be.

And that—more than anything—scared them.

They told me that my book, I Don’t Want to Grow Up, brought them to tears because it validated what they already knew to be true. That they’re not alone. That it’s okay to want something different. That it’s okay to feel everything.

It’s messages like this that remind me why I write.

As many of you know, I include my personal email address at the back of all my books. And I read—and respond to—every single message that comes in. Whether it’s a few sentences or a life story, I see them all. And again and again, I’m reminded: there are so many of us out here quietly carrying the same truth.

Maybe you’ve felt the same. Maybe you still do.

Maybe you’ve been told your dreams are too big, too unrealistic. Maybe people around you—people who love you—try to shrink them down to something more “manageable.” Maybe they call it protection. Maybe they call it love.

But it feels like fear.

The path you wish to walk might be lonelier at first.
It might not make sense to the people around you.
But if it lights you up—follow it.

Because when you do, you give silent permission to others to do the same. You become living proof that another kind of life is possible. And that’s how we build a better world.

So to the person who wrote to me—and to every soul who feels the same way:

Keep going. Keep dreaming. Keep burning.
You are not too young. You are not too idealistic.
You are just deeply, radically alive.

And that is not a problem. That is a gift.

—

📖 If this speaks to you, my book I Don’t Want to Grow Up was written for this very reason—to remind you that your wildness is sacred, your truth is valid, and you’re not alone.
Paperback/Kindle/Audiobook available here: scottstillmanblog.com