Every since I was a little girl, my grandfather told me “you can be anything you want to be when you grow up.” I can actually hear his voice in my head saying it now. And while I’m not sure my parents ever said things the exact same way, it was always implied in my household.

Growing up thinking the world is your oyster, makes chasing a dream like working in the arts seem pretty attainable.

I had parents who paid for my bachelor’s degree and the housing I needed to go to school. They paid for my books and pretty much anything I asked for. I got a part time job to do things like buy pizza and go to the movies – without having to ask them. I never needed that job.

Whenever I would visit my grandparents during school breaks, my grandpa would always press $20 into my hand as I left, even if I protested and said I was fine.

But backing up even further, I had parents who made me play a sport and learn an instrument, because they thought that made me well rounded. They were at every game and concert I can remember. Usually with my grandparents.

I had a super strict dad who demanded straight A’s on my report card, or I would be grounded, but a mother who would sit and help me with homework when I didn’t have a clue what was happening.

My mom also made me sit at the kitchen table and do my homework immediately after school, starting in kindergarten, before I could go play or do anything else, which I complained about incessantly. Even if friends came over to play after school, we all had to do our homework first, then we could play.

My parents weren’t rich at all, they were solidly middle class, but I never seemed to want for anything. When I came home saying I wanted to play soccer, we just went out and bought me some cleats and shin guards. When I picked the trumpet, I didn’t think for a second about where the trumpet was going to come from.

And in college, when I decided I would be a stage manager, I did it from a position of safety, knowing that if I failed, I could go home. My extended family is massive, there will never not be a couch available for me to sleep on, should the worst happen.

I did it from a position of walking out of undergrad with no student loans, so I could take crappy starter jobs – like my first stage management gig that made $500 a month doing “don’t do drugs, make good decisions” skits in prisons and juvenile detention facilities.

Talking about privilege monetarily is easy. Almost anyone can make money. But the area I was most privileged was being raised with supportive and strict parents.

You don’t just suddenly learn work ethic. I lucked out. My training started at 5 years old with a mom who would plop down an after school snack on the kitchen table and tell me to get out my homework at the same time.

I learned discipline from an early age, and a lot of people don’t have the same support system to do so.

This isn’t to say that everyone, despite their upbringing or current circumstance, can’t chase their dreams, because, theoretically, they can.

What I can tell you is that I come from a family of carpenters and teacher’s aids and oil refinery workmen and secretaries. I’m first the dream chaser. I’m not sure I ever appreciated the generations before me that didn’t chase their dreams and instead took safe and secure paths to build this safety net for me.

So if chasing your dreams sounds ludicrous to you, maybe you’re actually the generation creating the safety net for your next generation to go out and chase theirs.