Cheap Dreams

Dreams are supposed to be expensive. That’s what the world teaches us early—dreams require money, time, connections, clean clothes, and a voice that doesn’t shake when you speak. Cheap dreams, on the other hand, are treated like insults. Like things you should be embarrassed to want.

I grew up learning how to want quietly.

Our house was small enough that arguments had nowhere to echo. When my parents fought, their words stayed trapped between the walls, hovering in the air like smoke. Money was the third person in every conversation—uninvited, unavoidable, louder than love. Bills lay on the table like accusations. Dreams were never mentioned. They didn’t fit.

At school, teachers asked us what we wanted to be. Astronauts. Doctors. Entrepreneurs. The kids with polished shoes raised their hands first. They spoke confidently, like the future already belonged to them. When it was my turn, I said, “I don’t know.” It was safer. Wanting too much felt dangerous.

But at night, when the house finally slept, my cheap dreams woke up.

I dreamed of writing words that mattered. Of being seen without having to shout. Of a life where I wasn’t constantly calculating the cost of existing. These dreams didn’t involve mansions or luxury cars. Just space. Time. Dignity. Still, even those felt unaffordable.

Reality has a way of setting strict budgets on hope.

By eighteen, I was working instead of dreaming. Not because I didn’t want more—but because wanting more didn’t pay rent. My hands learned routines my mind hated. Wake up early. Smile at strangers. Count hours instead of possibilities. Every paycheck felt like proof that survival was the only acceptable ambition.

People said things like, “At least you have a job,” whenever I looked tired. Gratitude was expected. Desire was not.

I watched others chase big dreams with safety nets beneath them. If they failed, they called it “finding themselves.” If I failed, it would be called irresponsibility. There’s a difference between risk and recklessness when you’re poor—and the world never confuses the two in your favor.

So I kept my dreams cheap. Affordable. Folded neatly into spare moments.

I wrote on my phone during breaks. I imagined futures while standing in line. I practiced hope the way people practice accents—quietly, privately, afraid of being laughed at. My dreams didn’t ask for applause. They only asked to survive.

Sometimes I hated them for being so small.

Social media made everything worse. Everyone else seemed to be living loudly—traveling, achieving, glowing. Their dreams came with filters and sponsors. Mine came with exhaustion. Comparison is cruel when your reality won’t let you pretend.

There were days I thought about giving up entirely. Not because I lacked talent or effort—but because I was tired of fighting gravity. Reality presses down hard on people like me. It says, Stay where you are. Don’t reach. You might fall.

But cheap dreams have a strange strength.

They don’t demand overnight success. They don’t collapse under delay. They adapt. They wait. They survive on scraps of time and stubbornness. While expensive dreams burn bright and fast, cheap dreams flicker—but they don’t go out easily.

I realized this one evening while riding a crowded bus home. Everyone looked defeated in the same quiet way. Yet someone was humming softly. Someone else was texting a joke. Life, even here, was refusing to be completely silent.

That’s when it hit me: my dreams weren’t cheap because they lacked value. They were cheap because I had been taught to undervalue myself.

Aspiration isn’t limited by reality—it’s shaped by it. When reality is heavy, dreams learn to carry less. Not because they are weak, but because they are practical. Survival teaches efficiency.

I started treating my dreams with more respect after that. I stopped calling them small. I stopped apologizing for them. I understood that wanting peace instead of luxury, purpose instead of praise, was not failure—it was clarity.

I still don’t have everything I want. I still measure life carefully. Reality hasn’t softened. But my dreams have grown stronger, not bigger—stronger.

They fit inside my life instead of fighting it.

And maybe one day, when circumstances change, they’ll expand. Or maybe they won’t. Either way, they’re mine. Earned. Honest. Alive.

Cheap dreams are not worthless dreams.

They are dreams built by people who know the price of everything—and still choose to hope.