Dreams - a different view

"Don't be afraid of the space between
your dreams and reality. If you can
dream it, you can make it so."
- Belva Davis
Click Here For Success Tip # 017

This morning as I idled in rush hour traffic, I allowed my brain to frog leap through all thoughts about dreams. Yesterday, I wrote my dream of just having a day of peace without my past tripping me up.  How often I was criticized for not having a dream...I do...just different from most people.  I thought back to one of the arguments I had with DH after I had cancer.  He was angry with me for neglecting something he deemed important.  I don't even remember what it was that we were arguing about.  He yelled at me that I was letting go of all this 'important' stuff.  I yelled back that the so called 'important' stuff just wasn't all that important.  Cancer totally altered what I deemed important.  We went through a time in our life, early in our marriage, when I tried to make more money working from home, running a home business.  I read the motivational books like the Magic of Thinking Big.  I just didn't see why what they were writing about was all that important.  I had little kids that needed my attention.  I didn't have what it takes to have it all.  I just wanted to be a good mom.  

My brain hip-hopped to the movie A Christmas Carol when Ebenezer Scrooge is speaking to Marley's ghost...

Ebenezer: But it was only that you were an honest man of business!
Jacob Marley: BUSINESS? Mankind was my business! Their common welfare was my business!

Jacob forged his chain that he would carry for Eternity worrying about business instead of sharing happiness and building friendships.

My brain zig-zagged in another direction thinking of some of my friends from high school, seeing them at our class reunion.  They lamented years of climbing the ladder of success only to find it leaning against the wrong wall.  They toiled for years over something they realized they didn't care about. 

Perhaps the struggle I am having over a dream is that mine are not like other peoples.  I don't have a dream that I could pin to my refrigerator like a picture of a Lamborghini. I guess I internalized a discussion I had with KavinCoach years ago.  He asked me to describe myself.  I said I was a mother and wife....he corrected me that he didn't ask me what roles I did, he asked me to describe who I was.  We went round and round on the discussion because I saw myself by what I did.  Most people describe a dream as something they do or a place they can go to or an achievement to earn.  Dreams of integrity, peace, kindness, are hard to picture and describe as worthy dreams to have.  So much of our society describes success by money made, honors given, or praise by others.  But numerous studies show there is no connection between finances and happiness.  A sudden influx of money might cause a temporary lift of spirits but in studying Jack Pot winners, within a short period time, they are right back to feeling the same as before.  Perhaps my real struggle is accepting that my dream is not what others would expect but it doesn't make my dream any less worthy of pursuing.

Looking for dreams