One of the things that Guardians of the Galaxy did when it was released a couple, three years ago was to introduce—or reintroduce, depending on your age—us all to the music of the ’70s and early ’80s. The soundtrack was as popular as the movie itself, and it sent many scurrying to their nearest used CD store or Amazon outlet to explore all the music by those artists.

Art transcends time and generations. Mozart still speaks to us today, 225 years after he died.

Which is why I am hoping that Guardians of the Galaxy 2 will acquaint/reacquaint people with Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO. Because they have a song—“Hold On Tight”—that writers and artists, especially aspiring ones, should probably play every night before they go to sleep.

Hold on tight to your dream
Hold on tight to your dream
When you see your ship go sailing
When you feel your heart is breaking
Hold on tight to your dream

If you’re an artist—writer, musician, painter, sculptor, designer—you are a dreamer. You have to be. Our job is to look at the world differently from the bank tellers and lawyers and CPAs, and to share, through songs and stories and images, the world we see. The world they want to see. Need to see so they can enjoy their lives to the fullest, laugh, be entertained, and sometimes just to forget for a brief time.

I think it’s a sacred calling.

And, like every sacred calling, it comes at a cost.

It’s a price most of us started paying as children.

You remember. Every little kid, me and every other artist in the world included, dreams about what we hope to someday become. Something glamorous like a movie star. Something exciting like an astronaut. Something cool like a writer.

Side note/digression: Cool is not usually what anybody considered us to be when we were growing up. But, back to our story.

Long story short—no one on my playground bragged that when they grew up they’d manage a burger joint for a little better than minimum wage.

Most kids give up their dreams by the time they get to high school. Some last until college. Those of us who stubbornly remained dreamers had to go on the defensive. We were unrealistic and stupid and the odds were against us. Or so people said. Parents, friends, teachers, people we met at parties all told us in a variety of ways that we’d never be what we wanted to be.

They didn’t realize we already had little voices in our own heads telling us that. Louder and more painfully intimately than they ever could. The road to being a successful—or even somewhat successful—artist is generously strewn with roadblocks and rejection.

Is it any wonder that so many of us are anxious? Socially awkward? Lonely?

It’s hard to hold on to a dream when so many fingers are actively trying to pry it out of your hands.

That’s why you gotta do what ELO says and Hold On Tight to your dreams.

When you get so down that you can’t get up
And you want so much but you’re all out of luck
When you’re so downhearted and misunderstood
Just over and over and over you could

Hold on tight to your dreams.

Keep dreaming.

Never let go.