How Dreams Die

Four years ago I started something, I decided that I wanted to create a platform where I shared my ideas and thoughts on a range of topics, from running to religion to politics and philosophy. During that time I published 4 articles and went on a hiatus of about 4 years in which time I published nothing. Rather interestingly in that time I have written about 9 more articles and recorded a myriad of frantic thoughts and musing in the hopes that I would someday transcribe these for my blog. Unfortunately, most if not all of them were never revisited and needless to say never posted.

Rather than pick up where I left off with no acknowledgement of the time in between, I decided to start with an in-depth analysis of why I stopped and why I refused to publish even the ones I did. I am doing this in part to understand myself and in the hopes that maybe we ( me and you, yes you my dear reader ) can understand a bit more about ourselves and why and how we sometimes let our dreams die. If by the end of it, we learn how to keep a dream alive then even better, if not then oh well.

During my short time on earth, I have picked up a thing or two not the least of which has been the realisation that life, dear I say is not exactly what you thought it would be. Yeah, I know yours is an exception but shhh this part is for the many like myself who have big dreams and watched them take a good beating from the harsh realities of life. A reality that can sometimes be infinitely worse if you missed the luck of the draw at birth.

My theory is that kind of like Captain Jack Sparrow standing on the mast of the Black Pearl

looking beyond the ocean to the island with the treasure. We all lose sight of everything happening in the periphery and are hooked on what we want. We forget that once you start the journey you’d have to contend with the sea and the myriad of issues between you and your goal. There is always a price to pay and the wise ones count the costs before they begin. Every time you say Yes to something you also invariably say No to many other things but you just don’t realise it yet. For me, it was not realising that in order to keep up with my publication I would have to sacrifice countless hours to put my thought together refine them and put them on this website. It was failing to realise that this might cost me a few good nights out, a few evenings with friends and some missed Netflix series. It was failing to realise that when I publish my work I open myself up to scrutiny and ridicule. I am not suggesting you get caught up in the downside of your dreams cause that would ensure you never even start. As a matter of fact, I would argue that a blissful naivety of your own limitation can be a good thing. However, it can be the very seed of destruction.

So how then do we find balance? The Same way babies do, keep falling until you get it right. Don’t forget that babies eat well (read) and cry often (ask for help) so you have a better chance of finding balance.

When faced with the realities of life and its complexity, people react based on differing experiences and personalities. There are some blockheaded individuals who just persist and go on and somehow life just seems to get out of their way. They have a will so strong that like a force of nature, it bends everything in their pat. These are the ones your motivational books tell you about, but the truth is many fail with this strategy in fact the history books and the belly of the earth itself hold the story and bodies alike of focused determined individuals whose very focus and determination was their undoing. There is a great deal of adaptability required, we must learn to be fully willing to change our approach without changing our goals.

But like with most things in life this is riddled with nuances and risk, there is a chance that your temporary change of approach becomes a slow dream killer. When we take on a new job or role in life which is meant to help us transition into our dreams we can quite easily get stuck between two worlds. In this place, you can’t fully embrace the identity of the temporary role you have taken in pursuit of your dream and thus quite often don’t excel in it because you don’t put in the extra hours needed. This is normal because you just don’t love it. Nor do you fully identify with your aspiration because well you aren’t doing that either. This land of "Lymbo," is rife with confusion, misdirected frustrations and despair, it's a place where life loses meaning. In this space, you aren’t growing, neither in you temporary craft nor in your ambition and because growth is essential to our mental and spiritual well being its absence causes a myriad of things. For Some people it causes depression others may resort to hedonism; mindlessly seeking pleasure to fill the void. Both of these can be hard to spot from the outside and in the latter case we sometimes envy the individual drowning in mindless pleasure.

So, how do we stay committed to our goals in the face of life's harsh realities? I'm not entirely sure, but I do know one way is to embrace marginal but consistent progress toward your objectives. Setting a goal of writing one blog post per week when you've never written anything before might lead you to miss the mark or, like me, end up on a two-year hiatus. The key is to commit to consistency first and then work on intensity once you've mastered the former.

I believe I've made all the points I wanted to convey. Dreams are beautiful and necessary, but sometimes life forces us to adapt and find alternative paths without losing sight of our original goals. As that apply guy once said “Life is going to hit you in the head with a brick “ so adapt and find alternative paths without losing sight of your original goals or in some cases you’d have to hit life back in the ball and run to where you need to be.