George Bernard Shaw wrote that “the reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
One thing I have come to know by experience is that if something is widely accepted by people then you should doubt it. Just because something is “common sense” and “common knowledge” does not make it the truth.
Looking through history, and even in contemporary times, it is clear that the people that have made a difference and excelled above their generation are those that challenged the general view of things during their time.
They are people who ask why and find the answer before they accept something as gospel truth. If they do not find a satisfactory answer they change their perceptions and views in accordance with what they have found to be the truth.
Dream Big – take a lesson from history
A little over one hundred years ago, it was a generally held view that you could not catch voices from the wind and hear people speak who were hundreds of miles away. It took the invention of the radio to challenge this view and to change the world. Today, you can not only hear that person, you can see them as easily as though they were seated next to you. The internet and television have made this possible.
Who would have believed in the eighteen hundreds that man would be able to fly faster than any bird in the nineteen hundreds and beyond? The Wright brothers did. They challenged the view of their day and dared to dream. They were unreasonable men.
All the people that have changed the world in a big way were unreasonable people. Being unreasonable is being senseless, not level-headed, illogical or impractical. Sensibility, practicality, level-headedness and logic are good qualities no doubt and qualities that are invaluable to any dreamer as they pursue their dreams.
But while it is good to be like that when you are actually working on your dream, it is not advisable when it comes to defining your ultimate dream.
Dream Big – be unreasonable and senseless
Your ultimate dream should be unreasonable and senseless. If it is not, you are not dreaming big enough. When you have a dream that is big enough it will be totally mind-blowing. It will be one that will challenge you and scare you at the same time. It will be a dream that is so huge you will get excited and question your own sanity at the same time.
Your senses enable you to see, smell, hear, taste and touch. The senses exist in the physical realm in that they are designed to perceive the physical environment around you. So your senses cannot perceive things that are of a mental or spiritual nature.
Dream Big – ignore your senses
That is exactly the problem for us: we are too sensible with our dreams. We plan according to what we perceive by our senses to be the truth. We plan according to how much money we see in our bank accounts or pockets, what we hear people say about us and our situation or the economy, and the resources and things we can touch as being available to us. We are restricted by our senses.
Yet, Our senses were never designed to perceive spiritual, mental or abstract things. Our dreams begin with our thoughts, which are a mental process. Our thoughts are or should be superior to our senses. Whatever is manifested in the physical realm to the senses begins in the mental or spiritual realm.
Dream Big – trust your thoughts
If you are a dreamer you have to place more trust in your thoughts than in your senses. You must be unreasonable and senseless. Then your mind will be free to dream and to explore the possibilities of your potential.
Free yourself from your current physical limitations such as how much money you have, what papers you have, your current job, where you live and what you own. Your dream should be illogical and definitely not practical. If you have a clear idea right from the start as to how you would achieve your dream with every detail worked out, it is flawed.
If you have a dream that is big enough, you will not know how you will achieve it all when you start. Sure, you will have an idea of where to start, but not the whole picture. The “how” is not important, only the “what.” It’s cliché, but take heed to the saying: “where there is a will, there is a way.”
Dream Big – the acid test
Here is an acid test for your dream: if most people agree with you that your dream is achievable and that it is reasonable, chances are it is not worth dreaming about. If, on the other hand, when you tell people your dream they look at you like you are a case in the fruitcake sanitarium, or locally we would say a “Chainama” case, then you are probably on the right track. Do not be limited by an inability to see beyond your present circumstances. Do not be controlled by your senses.
Dream Big – understand the inside-out paradigm
As a dreamer, you must realise that life is lived from the inside-out and not from the outside-in. It all starts in the mind. That is the real battlefield of life. That is where the war is raging. If you can create your ideal life in your mind and live that life like a reality everyday in your mind, you have won the battle. It will have no choice but to manifest itself in the physical.
Success, riches, happiness, fulfillment, recognition and all, do not come as a surprise to dreamers when they get those things - because they have been living it in their minds all along. It had to happen. The physical world cannot resist the spiritual and mental world. In the hierarchy of life it was designed so. One has to obey the other. The physical has to obey the spiritual and mental.
Dream Big – conclusion
The spiritual and mental aspects of a man are limitless, boundless, free in every respect and more powerful than we could ever understand. They are unreasonable and senseless.
In the book of Hebrews this principle is well illustrated because “through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Learn to utilize this power within you. Be unreasonable.
You are all you can be. Go on and be it.
