During my lifetime I had a lot of dreams, I have achieved a part of them, many are still there, being transferred every time I make a new wish list and some appear at new time intervals.
But one day, while writing my wish list, I started questioning the idea of dream.
We dream, first of all, because we need to. A person without dreams is almost a zombie in my opinion.
And also my opinion is that life does not have a meaning by itself, but we have to build those meanings. So we have to built purposes that will give us satisfaction, but before building purposes you have to think about a target, you have to feel it, you have to dream it. If you had no dreams at all, your life goes by inertia and you are susceptible to become a slave in someone else’s dreams or, even worse, just go with the flow in the bad way and expect every day to pass away and eventually wait for the weekend, vacations, holidays.
Of course, there are exceptions: those who deliberately choose to work for someone else’s dreams, but those have such much assumption and understanding, that they are happy with what they do.
But I want to build I life I do not want vacations from.
And for that life I have first to be a dreamer. And a damn good one.
When we are young we feel that we can conquer the universe no matter what. We have dreams and purposes and we do not feel the harm of achieving them. Then, as we grow, we usually enter the social and economic system and…we get lost in it. Working, let’s say in a corporation, consumes a lot of time. But, more than time, it consumes a lot of energy, physical and psychological energy. And we enter in a cycle: to work, build a relaxing life after work, wait for vacations and weekends, relax, work.
So we become more and more consumer and less producers.
And there comes a time when I hear people saying “I cannot”.
In order to achieve dreams we need to build our dreams, believe in them, be creative and be producers.
This world is a playground and if you see it this way you will never ask yourself if, but how. And the difference is huge: you think you can do, but you have to find the best means or you think you cannot do it. Either way, you are right, as Harrison Ford use to say.
In the path of doing there are two main problems: patience and the amount of energy you are willing to exchange for your purposes.
Patience is a virtue and everyone can cultivate it. When we want something we use to want it now (preferable yesterday). We do not understand that everything we want has to grow from idea to happening and growing means time. Usually what we want to achieve comes with our own personal, professional and spiritual development, so it is about how we transform through experience more than the experience itself. It is more about the journey than about the destination.
But we look up to people that have reached the goals we set for ourselves and we think it must be easy. Well, it usually is not and success does not come over night. It means work, time and personal development.
People that understand that they have to give time to their purposes must pass the other obstacle: invest energy in their dreams. And this is the second main problem because it requires getting out from the comfort zone.
And done is better than good.
There are smart people thet know in details how their dreams must look like. They have these great standards they want to achieve and they dream they are in the top before they even start. And when they do a small part that part is never good enough.
I have seen the “not-good-enough” pattern in all the areas: writer that have never published their novels, make-up artists that have never made public their talent, artists that have painted just for themselves, even software apps that remained unfinished in a developer’s computer because “no one will like their work”. And all these people had talent and good ideas, their work was great, but not extraordinary, because they were beginners in their areas. They had to invest more energy in their working and get it to light. They had the ideal in their heads, they knew they could be better so they wanted only the best. But all of them have stopped because doing just for yourself never works. People do not have energy to continue to the top if they do not have feedback.
On the other hand I have seen people with one single idea put in practice and learning as the time has passed. Generally speaking, you could tell they are less intelligent than the first category mentioned. But, by the fact that they simply do things and learn every day to go from average to good, then to better and better, they have discovered the path to perfection. And their way had a lot of obstacles, they were clumsy and beginners in many moments, but going on all the time means getting things done. And this is more than every smart idea that remains in the shelf.
These are the people that have confidence to dream and achieve dreams. The ones that do it. The other remain dreamers that hope that one day the inspiration will hit them and, by night, they become the best. But best is a building path, not a destination.
images source: pixabay.com
