I think the reason many of us don't let ourselves chase our dreams is because we're afraid to fail - we'd rather hold onto our dreams than watch them fall apart.
Feel free not to respond if it's too personal, but do you find that true of yourself as well?
Yeah, being honest with myself, I do. For example, I've been playing piano for almost 13 years now. But there are some people that are just as good or better but with half the amount of experience. I've found myself practicing less, and I was giving the excuse that I was just too busy to practice, and that's why I'm not as good as them. It's not that I'm not as talented, I just don't have the time. I think a lot of people do this. We don't study for tests because we're afraid we'll fail them anyways. We don't ask out that guy/girl because we're afraid they'll reject us. At least then we can look back and tell ourselves we could have done it, instead of realizing we weren't able to. I actually realized all this when thinking about New Years' resolutions. At least I figured that out.
What a perfect time to write about this then, haha. I think that failure isn't something we should shun, but rather embrace! It's part of life! Why would we not want to embrace any part of it?
This is something everyone struggles with (myself very much included). I like that you brought this up because I think it's a definitely a reason as to why we've stopped dreaming.