I am at the very tail-end of my study stint at university, and will walk away soon with a qualification many only dream of. This final stretch of my journey has also brought with it a spate of worries, mostly on my part, of job prospects, the quandary of whether to even work in the first place or continue studying, and obtaining finances to repay my Mount Everest of debt.

These last few months have not been easy. It is a time when I needed to be most self-assured, and have unwavering faith in my own capabilities and strengths; and yet, all this has seemed to desert me. I am now reduced to a blithering fool who is not only incredibly fickle-minded, but also a person who is no longer sure of what she wants to do.

I like to call myself a ??realistic dreamer?ˉ, in the sense that I guard my dreams and nurture them the best I can, while acknowledging the fact that I need to be practical and find a way of putting food on the table.

As a person who has always been sure of her decisions and protects her dreams with a fierce passion, this state of limbo is one that is entirely new to me.

In a fit of desperation to make money to fund my wish to travel overseas as a mini-reward to myself, I found myself in situations I never imaged I would: I took on a meagerly paying data entry job, spending hours slogging over the computer thinking how much I hated it; I attended job interviews for jobs I am not even remotely interested in the first place. I stressed over money, starved myself, and declined the financial assistance of those who cared most about me in a bid to not add on to my escalating debt and guilt.

It actually got to the point where I was entirely miserable, instead of being excited that I could finally go out into the world and make a difference.

I was overwhelmed by a sense of the enormity of the task ahead of me to climb the corporate ladder (the idea of which I despise with a passion) and make money to help put my younger brother through university, as well as repay my education loan and lighten the burden of my parents who have supported me throughout my 21 years thus far.

I morphed into a desperate, money-seeking, irritable, cranky, bitter person; the darker side of my personality that hardly emerges unless under unspeakable duress. I had momentarily shunned my inner dreamer, the part of me that idealistically believed in following my heart and that I could and would live Happily Ever After.

My passions lie in writing, and working with children. Both debatably financially impractical schemes, albeit noble ones, I was blindsided momentarily, torn between duty and desperation, both at the expense of my dreams.

These last few months have not been easy ones. At the cost of who I really am, I became the type of person I pitied the most, the one who does things for all the wrong reasons. But I am glad I have awoken from this reverie, just in time, before the supply of stardust that I keep in my pocket for dreaming dried up.

Does it really matter that at the end of the day I will most likely not live in a big semi-D house with five cars and a foreign domestic helper? Would it really make me happy if I made enough money to wipe my bottom with after using the toilet? The answer to these is, most likely not, because I have never been that type of person.

I dream of a sweet cozy house that perpetually smells of cookies in the suburbs with a sizeable lawn, a big friendly dog or two running around, and a couple of kids dangling from the tyre swings my future husband would have put up. I would live in organized chaos, make enough money to be comfortable, and write when I have things to say.

The pressures to do what one truly wishes and the sense of duty one has to one?ˉs family and society are extremely real, and very strong indeed. But the important thing to remember is one?ˉs sense of duty to oneself, because if one is not happy doing what one wishes, how does one expect to make others happy?

I shudder to think that for this very brief time, I was at the danger of becoming someone so blinded by the idea of financial gain I had so readily shelved the very things that made me so happy and filled me with such a sense of purpose.

I pray that anyone else at the threshold of sacrificing one?ˉs dreams for desperation and duty, not forget that above all, they owe it to themselves to make their dreams come true.

Because if we don?ˉt create our own fairytale for ourselves, nobody else will.

Last 5 posts by Melody Song

• The activist in me - November 22nd, 2007
• Expensive Tastes and an Empty Wallet - September 14th, 2007
• When Cheap is not Chic - August 14th, 2007
• When to Lose One's Virginity - August 14th, 2007
• Waisted Days and Waisted Nights - July 14th, 2007