“A Dream” by juusan13 | deejuusan.deviantart.com
I have always been told not to fall in love with “the idea” of something but what is the point of pursuing something we cannot dream about? Dreams and ideals set souls on fire, spark persistence, light the way for betterment. They lead mortals to immortality, savages to enlightenment, each being to growth and personal fulfillment.
No one would be happy spending time and energy on a task they find irrelevant. Who would spend decades trying to enter a field they have no interest in? Who would feel motivated to pursue someone they don’t admire? Who would give up their life to live someone else’s dream?
But too many do anyway. Why?
Where’s the harm in dreaming? I ask. The threat of failure! The lack of success! Regret! These are the replies I’ve heard from everyone, and myself.
I’m tired of these answers.
What is the threat of failure compared to failure by default? If the threat of failure is realized, there have been mistakes made, thoughts to regather and reapply. Failure by default is complete and impossible to recover from. ”Success” has never been a commodity nor a destination. Anyone is successful when they say they are successful. And regret is for opportunities missed—the bitterness comes always (but only) after realizing what could have been.
So I ask a different question: what is the point of pursuing the mundane? Pursuit of staid convention, of outdated customs, of the same picket fence box in the same small town, the same red-brick low-rise in the suburb of your birth, the same scarred hammer that your father wielded and his father before him. Tradition has its value, of course, as a set of proven practices that have been effective the majority of the time (such is the basis of the scientific method, birthplace of countless human innovations) but pursuit of tradition for the sake of tradition is baseless and tiring. And when times change, traditions lose their efficacy and have no reason to be upheld.
My message is not to dream big. That can be just as outlandish—it would not be an infatuation with an idea but an excess of ambition and zealotry alongside a shortage of sincerity or resources. It would be an empty promise.
My message is to dream humbly, and honestly. Pursue those dreams that drive you to such incredible heights that you cannot help but hold them close to your heart. The dreams that infiltrate the basest aspects of everyday life and still fill your thoughts when you leave your mind out in the sun.
My message is to live passionately and fear not failure. Failure is nothing. Fear limitations. Fear believing in failure. Fear believing that success is impossible, for the fear of it will make it true. Fear regret. Life does not come again and every moment dissipates from our shallow, linear existence—so revel in every tenuous second.
dreamspindle 