I'd been working at the same job for about ten years, and I started to work on a different group that made the same product with a never technology. I hated that, I found it hard to work in that and I wasn't that productive. Also I had some burnout, some depression, and not much to look forward to...
Except for dancing. I had begun some years prior and I became somewhat good, and I even began to teach.
Then an offer came, resign from the job for money was offered to all, I accepted.
For about two years I just gave classes and worked as staff. Unfortunately the money was not enough.
Then I started helping on the dance school's webpage. The money wasn't enough yet.
So I got a programming job and resigned from most of my job in the dance school. I just teach one hour a week.
I really lost my dream job because of money and not being good enough earn enough to life with that.
I'm sorry but dancing is definitely not one of those professions where "if you believe you can do it".
Depending on the specific dancing style there are strict body types and features that you need to have, and not all of them can be acquired by training. So yeah, nature is not fair but feel-good comedies don't always apply to real life.
Others have pointed to you that to dance you only need to be able to move, to that I agree. But between dancing and have a profession out of dancing there's a big difference.
There are lots of reason why now I can't base my income in dancing, I'm telling them as to give a data point as to why it's not allways as easy as "if you want you can".
First: I don't live alone anymore. Married with some obligations. My income needs have grown, even though there are two sources of income.
Second: Physical activities require discipline, that I lack, and time, which is now spent on my "new" job, my partner and housework.
Third: There are several possible incomes for dancing. None of them make the cut as a great source of income.
* Payed exhibition dancing is usually done by younger and more talented people, also it's inconsistent income. Done a bit, enough not to find it feasible.
* Competitions don't pay that much, lots of politics in there.
* Teaching (which is what I love) doesn't pay much unless you have a name, with low salary you'd need lots of classes, but names teachers get most of them.
* Staff work pays less than teaching, necessary for the school to function, but boring.
Fourth: compatible schedules. Being with someone that lives in "the real world" means that working 15 to 23/24 is not seeing them (staff+classes+parties). That and money where the primary causes for my change of career. Priorities matter.
Fifth: People tend to prefer tall, fit, young, handsome male dancers and short, fit, young, beatiful female dancers. Each point where you diverge it's a handicap, I have several.
So yes, I could have kept on my dream job, but I would have to leave behind too many things that I need, like my SO, and would have to go back to living with flatmates. All that, in my early 40's, is not what I want of my life.
"Never stop dreaming!", "if you believe you can do it" are nice phrases to throw at people, but you can cause them to lose their grounding in reality, where sometimes dreams have to be crushed for the greatest good.
In the end, you gave it a shot, you chased the dream, and have good hard reasons why you gave it up. Be consoled with the knowledge that you tried, you would have never known if you had not tried!
I understand. You're balancing the life you have now vs your dream career. And you don't foresee anything better in the latter. It's ok. Due to today's society, a lot of us sacrifice what we love doing for economical comfort.
I never said it was easy. Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world, and most of the time you have to make sacrifices in order to do what you love. In your case, it means lowering your living standards, but that's up to you, I respect that.
At least that one doesn't not seem to imply dreaming about the same exact thing forever. In other words it might be something else if dancing didn't work out. Still seems to me (I'm in my 30s) that someone with a dream can definitely get further compared to someone with "bullet points" so to speak.
That's a bit like saying "besides having reasonably good eyesight and ten working fingers that can type, I can't think of anything else one might need to be a developer as a profession..."
Well, obviously you need to need to train ... [...], but OP I was referring to, implied that you have to be born a certain way in order to dance, which is completely BS as long as you have all your limbs and good health.
Unless you're severely handicapped, I don't understand why wouldn't you be able to dance whatever type of dance you want.
If you have all your limbs and can walk, you can perfectly dance whatever is that you want. If you're fat and can't dance no more that one minute without getting out of breath, get in shape and train endurance. As simple as that.
If you're 5.4" or less and feel intimidated dancing with a taller woman, find yourself a woman of your same height.
You shouldn't be cutting away wings and locking up birds in cages telling them they can't fly.
Mental handicap imposed by oneself -or others, which at the end of the day ends being oneself- is the worst of all.
I dunno but I think you guys might be talking past each other a bit - this discussion is different depending on whether "dancing" is ballroom dancing, e.g. or ballet, modern, or what have you.
Although even with modern, there is a strong school aiming to democratize dance. My family were performers in Kaeja D'Dance (http://www.kaeja.org/) Porch View Dances this year (look it up if you like dance) and the performances were very good. The choreographers were very careful to work around body types and capabilities.
This is silly. This is like claiming that just because you have arms and legs and can run, you can play football. Yes, almost anyone can toss a ball around, and lots of people can play amateur football (choose whichever definition of "football" you want here) on the weekend with friends. But very, very few people can make a real living playing football.
Not my kind of site. My dancing information needs are covered by my Facebook feed, the swingdancing reddit and sporadically yahoodi.com.
As I don't think I'll be able to earn my living with dancing, nor will my free time be dedicated to it, I'm trying to finally learn lisp, so most of my news' search is about that.
Also.. I don't like pages with the look and feel that that one has, I know modern pages tend to be like that, but I prefer other kinds of formatting. Take this with a grain of salt, because I'm no longer in your target demographics.
I'd been working at the same job for about ten years, and I started to work on a different group that made the same product with a never technology. I hated that, I found it hard to work in that and I wasn't that productive. Also I had some burnout, some depression, and not much to look forward to...
Except for dancing. I had begun some years prior and I became somewhat good, and I even began to teach.
Then an offer came, resign from the job for money was offered to all, I accepted.
For about two years I just gave classes and worked as staff. Unfortunately the money was not enough.
Then I started helping on the dance school's webpage. The money wasn't enough yet.
So I got a programming job and resigned from most of my job in the dance school. I just teach one hour a week.
I really lost my dream job because of money and not being good enough earn enough to life with that.