Do you dream?
I’m not talking about the kind of dreams where you’re flying through the clouds like you’re Superman; or where you realize you’re walking around your school or office without any clothes on; or where you’re being chased through a vast cornfield by a machete-wielding psychopath intent on liberating your head from your spinal column; or maybe one of those where you’re riding a majestic twelve-foot tall purple unicorn with a rainbow tail who farts little clouds of the most amazing cotton candy you’ve ever had as you walk through the Gumdrop Forest (mental note…there might be potential in that last one…). No, I’m talking about taking the time to dream about what your life could be. To dream about the things you could do? To imagine your wildest fantasies about the life you could live?
Today, we’re going to talk about dreaming big.
Some people dream of being doctors, singers, chefs, parents, rich or famous. When I was a much younger boy, I used to dream. I dreamed that one day I would be an actor on the big screen, or maybe a famous writer. At one time, I dreamed that I would one day be part of that daring, highly trained special mission force team known as G.I. Joe! But my biggest dream, for many years, was to one day work for the WWE (in some capacity – I felt that I did not have the natural physical gifts to be one of their in-ring performers). And no, this is not a big reveal that I have accepted a job working for the WWE (but I am open to that if anyone out there in WWE/TKO-land is reading!). My point is that as young people, we often dream about what our lives will be like in the future. As we get older, many of us seem to lose that ability to dream. Why is that?
What’s behind the blockage?
Is it because life gets in the way? Maybe we have too many responsibilities in our daily lives. Things like family, kids, work, bills to pay, that stack of unread books that you swear you’ll get to but never seem to have the time. These are all possible reasons to explain why many people seem to stop dreaming as they grow up. But I believe that there is a more prominent blocker behind it all.
I think the real reason is fear. Fear that we will realize that we’re not doing what we really want to do in life. Fear that we’ll have to give up some of the comforts we have in our current lives in order to live a bigger, brighter life. Many people are afraid of change, afraid of the unknown. I know. I’m one of them. It’s easy to end up perfectly content with the life you’re living. A comfortable job with a decent salary. A spouse and a child. Friends you get together with a few times a year when everyone’s calendars line up just right. Maybe you’re able to save up for that big family vacation every year (or every other year). Life is good. What’s wrong with living this life?
I can speak with authority on having the following thought process: ”Why would I give up this life I’ve built? I have a happy family life. I’ve been working at the same place for over 15 years. I have a good salary for the work I do. I have benefits. I have five weeks of vacation. Am I living the best life I could possibly imagine? Okay, maybe not, but I can’t risk throwing all of that away on a dream. Can I?“
My scenario is often referred to as having Golden Handcuffs. You become so comfortable in your routine, your work, your life, that you can’t even fathom changing anything for fear that it will all crumble and fall apart. So you learn to accept it, and slowly your dreams of a different life fade away.
I would venture to say that for more than 90% of the population, that is quite enough. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be happy, to be comfortable, to be safe. But for that other small percentage of people, there’s something more out there, something that’s calling them. For a long time, I felt like I was in that 90%. But in the last few years, I’ve started to feel an itch. I’ve begun to reawaken my ability to dream. I was always one for flights of fancy when I was younger, and I find myself getting back to those ideas again more and more regularly. I think it’s always been lying there, dormant, hibernating even, waiting for spring to arrive so that the long winter’s slumber comes to an end. And now it is time to feed this hungry beast.
Reset
As part of my journey of self-awareness and self-development, I’ve embarked on a 16-week long course called Reset. Under the mentorship of Francois Lemay, I’m learning to observe myself, my behaviours, my mental processes and the patterns that I live by in my life. One of the exercises that he’s asked us to do is to imagine our ultimate life. If you could do whatever your soul was calling you to do, what would you do? How would you live? Who would you be? It’s a challenging exercise for many people because we’ve forgotten how to dream. It did not take me long to begin to formulate my vision of my ultimate life. A few key words immediately came to mind, almost instinctively – travel, food, writing, Disney. Those were the seeds that were planted.
I’ve been meditating on this thought exercise for the past few days. First I visualized what my ultimate life would look like if I could have it. Then I took it a step further and made myself let go of the safety blanket that I had in my mind. Did you catch that when I wrote it just above? ”If I could have it.“ Those are dangerous words when you are dreaming. When you’re dreaming about your life, why do we so often say “if I could…” or “if I had…“? It creates a sense of lack and gives your brain an out. ”Oh, it’s nice to think about those things, but let’s be real – it’s not going to happen because…“ More dream-killing words!
So step two of my visualization was to picture my ultimate life, not in a possible future state, but as if I were living it now. I took the time to not only see my life, but to feel it. I pictured a typical day in this new life. I visualized where I was, what I was doing, who I was with, how I felt physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I saw how happy and fulfilled I was. I felt the pride in the work that I was doing. I felt comfortable and abundant in every sense of the word. And then I soaked in that feeling for a good 5-10 minutes. My plan is to repeat this exercise regularly, if not daily, for the foreseeable future.
Your vibe attracts your tribe
I firmly believe that you attract the vibe that you put out to the universe. If you focus on what you’re lacking, or what you don’t want to see or experience, you’re putting your energy and attention on the negative. If you keep wanting to not be sick, you’re still putting your energy on the illness. Think instead of being well. It’s a subtle, yet powerful shift in mindset.
So I will continue to put my focus, my attention, my energy on what I want to be, not on what I do not want. I can look to real-life people for inspiration. People like my friend Jessica Emin who fully follows her passion for food and photography and became a multi-hyphenate: food stylist / photographer / TV host / writer / recipe creator, etc. (You can find her on Instagram.)
Seeing people like Jessica live their best life gives me inspiration, and hope, that I too can follow my dreams. I first need to put in the time and effort to outline them. Then, with firm intention, and concentrated focus, I need to take the smallest steps possible in the direction of my dreams. It’ll be a lot of work and will require a lot of patience, time, effort and acceptance, but it will be ultimately worth it.
What are your dreams? Do you have grand aspirations that you’ve left by the wayside as you’ve gotten older? Where can you put your focus to help put you back on the path to living even a small piece of that dream life?
Musings of A Boxhead 