Dreaming Of Dreaming

Yesterday I was reminded yet again of the necessity of having dreams. Now, I'm not referring to 'goals' that we make, that usually involve a plan and time frame. A dream, to me, is a group of goals put together and the end result of those goals combined.

A dream, or multiple dreams, give us hope. And, as I've said before, without hope we have nothing. Not saying we can live with the hope of hope alone of course.

Hope gives us a reason to get out of bed. Hope gives us a reason to get up when we fall down. Hope gives us the opportunity to momentarily escape our current circumstances to dream big. I think the trick to dreaming big is to do just that - dream big. Don't so much worry initially how your current reality looks in contrast to your dream, but instead let the dream consume you, take you away, the more ridiculous, the better.

Sometimes people lose their hope along the journey we all travel which is this life. Sometimes their hope is trampled on by others. Sometimes they allow the opinions of others in to crush their dreams.

Sometimes people find their hope. And I think it's a lot like riding a bike - even if you go for a period without a bike, you will still be able to hop on one and take off, balancing when you get another one. Dreaming's the same. As children we all dream. We dream what it will be like to be an adult, we dream what we will do occupation-wise, who we will or won't marry, how many children we will have, where we will live, what type of house we will have.

But then adolescents fast approaches with all it's changes, peer pressures and inadequacies, and somehow it doesn't seem so important to dream. In fact, it seems almost child like, infantile. So we keep our dreams locked away inside. Sometimes the strength of the dream is enough to keep it alive inside. Sometimes the pulling of low self worth works against the dream, with all our strength going towards healing ourselves from problems arising from our own sense of self worth, while the heat from the fire of the dream reduces.

Then as adults we grow comfortable in our skin. Sometimes the dream is still there, but buried. Sometimes it's difficult to find, buried under years of junk that we shouldn't hold onto but do. Sometimes we look for the dream and find it without trouble. other times we look and after a period of time we give up the search, because we're disappointed, distracted or just too busy.

So if we, as children, can all dream, then why do we find it so hard to continue doing it as adults? Because for one reason or the other society seems to dictate, okay, from my observations western society seems to dictate that to be productive, we must be busy. Time is money, money is time, money is precious, therefore time is also precious. Really time is nothing more than activities given priorities. As adults we often have children ourselves. When we have not only ourselves to look after, but having moved 'up' a generation we now have our own families to look after also, we fail to recognize the importance of having a dream, of spending time dreaming.

So be very careful what you say to other people. We don't always know the dreams of the people around us, the people we love, and it would be a horrible thing to unknowingly (and probably unwillingly too) crush someone else's dreams, with words uttered without thought, soon forgotten by the person that spoke them, but forever remembered and played over and over in the head of the recipient, especially if they for whatever reasons are sensitive regarding their dream.

Some people live their lives never willing to try to achieve their dreams. Perhaps they don't have enough belief in themselves, and if they've had the courage to share their dream with those around them, perhaps they don't have anyone else to believe in them and their ability to achieve their dream. Some are scared of failure. Others are scared of success.

If ever given the opportunity, speak encouraging words to someone regarding their dream. Even if you don't particularly like hearing what they're saying, it's their dream, in their life, at least try to find something positive about it. A lot of past successes may have been failures without someone believing in them while they were still dreams.

If you can't find someone to believe in you dream, don't give up. Just believe with all your being and never, ever give up. And encourage others with the pursuit of their dreams in the process.

Have you neglected your dream? Do you know what it is or was? If not, it's never too late to dream, and best of all - like all good things in life, dreaming is free!