Should you ever give up on your dreams?

My friend is very sad at the moment: stuck at a crossroads and really feeling the weight of her responsibilities. And I can totally relate to that.

It seems a strange coincidence that there was me, writing only a few days ago about trying to break free of my procrastinating habits, only to then learn my friend was going through something similar. And it got me thinking: is it really possible to find a balance between achieving your dreams whilst managing your responsibilities? Or are the two things mutually exclusive?

I realise I probably don't sound it but I am quite the optimist at heart and I would definitely describe myself as a dreamer (although I'm not quite as good at being a doer). So I don't want to believe that having a mortgage and a family precludes me from achieving things that are important to me. But more and more, I seem to be coming across this attitude that says "put aside your dreams when you have responsibilities, do what's necessary to meet those responsibilities and that's all you should expect and hope for; anything else is selfish and irresponsible". I know we're in a recession and times are hard but is this really a reason to give up on properly living this, the one life we all get?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that we all quit our jobs and sit about until our dreams fall into our laps. But what I do think is that no matter what compromises we have to make so that we can meet our responsibilities, we should never give up on taking steps towards achieving our dreams; we just have to be a bit more creative about finding/making the time to do that. And if we don't then surely that means that particular dream was never really that important to us?

So, what do you think? Do you have dreams and goals you're working towards? How do you make them fit in with the rest of your life? Let me know in the comments, as I'd love to hear.