LIVING YOUR DREAMS

“All our dreams will come true, but only if we have the courage to pursue them.”

      This quotation by the great entrepreneur and founder of the world’s greatest entertainment empire, Walt Disney, is to my mind one of the finest examples of success in a man who persisted with his dreams even when no one else cared anymore. It also echoes the sentiments of so many other successful entrepreneurs and leaders who have dared to live their dreams, have seen them come to fruition, and blossom beyond their wildest expectation.

We are all, to a greater or lesser extent, dreamers, and yet unfortunately very few of us have acquired the courage and conviction necessary to follow our dreams to completion. Instead we prefer to spend our time focusing on our limitations, or making excuses for why we cannot be the people we would like to be. Many of us are content to sit back and spend our time in the useless pastime of admiring or trying to copy those who have succeeded, or envying their success, or even worse, criticizing and vilifying them for succeeding. We have no difficulty in convincing ourselves that to follow our dream is unrealistic, impractical, and totally far-fetched. We try to argue that such a life is reserved for a few select people who are different and are specially endowed with select ability, and that for the rest of humanity, it is unrealistic to expect this result. Few of us really believe, as the amazingly successful American actress, TV personality, author and entrepreneur, Oprah Winfrey, has so confidently stated:

“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live your dreams.”

Theories concerning the origin, purpose and meaning of dreams, their complexity and disagreements continue to abound. Sigmund Freud, the great Swiss-German psychiatrist and recognized father in the field of Psychoanalysis, firmly believed that our dreams are windows into our deepest unconscious minds and as such reflect our profoundest needs, hopes and desires. Carl Jung, a former student and subsequent rival of Freud, went further to suggest that dreams were the product of our repressed wishes and primal needs, and offer us the opportunity to review our actions, think through unresolved issues and find right solutions. Yet there are others, including Allan Hobson, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard University, who prefer to explain dreams as events that give rise to the images, sensations, activity, thoughts, sounds and voices that are experienced during sleep, strictly as attempts by the mind to make sense of past experiences.

But to me, dreams are far more than the random, illogical brain impulses with no reason or purpose, that so many are content to accept. Dreaming, whether during sleep or awake, is a vital and essential function in human beings. Dreams are the engine and the driving force that make a life worthy of living. They are present to motivate, inspire, stimulate, encourage and help the individual to achieve his hopes and goals. There really is no fundamental difference between the dreams we have during sleep or the dream born of an idea in the mind of the astute individual. They are both natures’ way of shining a light in the dark, or lighting a fire which, if followed will lead to satisfaction. Unfortunately however, our lives are cluttered with dreams that have come and been ignored or abandoned along the way, without realizing that all these dreams, however strange, are reflections of our very spirit seeking to find true fulfillment in life.

A dream to be effective however, must first be recognized by the dreamer and it must ignite in him a creative fire which forces him to take action. Many of these fires are started, but only relatively few are ever carried to completion, the rest are discarded as merely interesting but not applicable, or a nuisance and be forgotten. Yet these very same dreams in the hands of others, the gifted, the pathfinders and the entrepreneurs of the world, will grow into great ideas and equally great discoveries. Henry David Thoreau, the great American author, poet and philosopher, one of the early leaders of the abolition movement in America, and a strong supporter of the philosophy of civil disobedience, so successfully used by such great leaders as Gandhi, King and Mandela, was an ardent believer of living his dreams. He confidently declared his faith in his dreams, and was determined to make full use of them throughout his life. The following quotation leaves no doubt about his philosophy:

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,

 and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,

he will meet with a success, unexpected in common hours."

A dream without fulfillment remains a mere fantasy of the mind. It will wither and die and be forgotten, without ever seeing the light of day, and the dreamer, like so many others before him, is robbed of the joy and satisfaction of reaping its fruits. Many of these are victims of the personal apathy and disbelief that inhabits so many of us and shows itself as so many variations of anger, jealousy and discontent. And other dreams will die because the dreamer lacked preparedness or the willingness to expend the effort needed. Tragically, too many people spend their lifetime chasing after thier dreams only to find disillusionment and emptiness, and many more do not even bother to search out their dreams, being quite content to accept a life without meaning. For without dreams to set the direction and to show the way, we are condemned to a life without goals or fulfillment. We become like the lonely goldfish swimming aimlessly in his bowl of water, or the cuckoo that appears on the clock each hour of the day. Tom Bradley, the outstanding African-American politician who served as Mayor of Los Angeles for more than 20 years, was indeed precise when he observed:

“The only thing that will stop you from fulfilling your dreams is You!”

      In many ways, Dreams are the seeds the mind may use to set in motion the steps necessary to achieve emotional and physical satisfaction. Lao Tzu, the great ancient Chinese philosopher, several thousand years ago used the metaphor of cultivating a seed to explain his view on dreams when he wrote:

“Be careful what you water your dreams with.

 Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream.

Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success.

Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success.

Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.”

Anyone can readily recognize the wisdom of these words and will no doubt understand that a dream, to be effective in its role, must first be understood, and carefully nurtured before it can yield the fruit that is expected of it.

                                                                                 

For dreams to be truly effectively and meaningfully nurtured, they must of necessity be our own dreams and must not belong to another person. Far too often, instead of trying to live our own life and pursue our own dreams, we find it easier to follow the life and dreams that make other people happy. Most of the time, we do this out of a sense of inferiority and inadequacy in ourselves, or fear of our own inability. We become afraid to lose the other person’s attention and affection, or of being ignored for not conforming to their standards and expectations. We continue to do this mainly to avoid exposing ourselves to perceived risks, and to protect ourselves from the pain of failure. We end up paying a steep price for this emotional security of living in the shadows of other people by doing what they want and suppressing our own inner spirit. This to me is a price that is far too much for any one to pay. Jim Carrey, the highly successful Canadian actor, impressionist, comedian and painter, whose early life overflowed with disappointments, was speaking from his heart when he said:

“It is better to risk starving to death, than surrender.

If you give up on your dreams, what’s left?”

         Lin Yutang, one of the most influential Chinese writers of the 20^th century, whose works in Chinese and in English have gained universal recognition, describes the dynamic effect of dreams in the following way:

“However vague they are, dreams have a way of concealing themselves and leave us no peace until they are translated into reality, like seeds germinating underground, they are sure to sprout in their search for the sunlight."

To him, dreams have a special way of drawing attention to themselves, and of reminding us of their presence. But it is then left entirely to us to connect with them, to feed them with rich and positive thoughts, to learn more about them and about ourselves. They must be understood and assimilated before they become realities. They need to be defended and protected and allowed time to grow to their fullest expression. And even when all is done, the fruits must be carefully harvested at the right time to achieve maximum result. Without this care and attention, they will be, as so many become, disappointments. Any entrepreneur who has successfully lived his dream will willingly attest the truth of this statement.

        

But even a good dream can only be effective when it is strongly supported by a vision that is clear and uncompromising and by a true willingness to do everything needed to bring it to reality. It demands setting aside the sacrifices and disappointments that result from the criticisms and failures that occur along the way, and using them to reinforce the determination to succeed. It requires taking the time for a thorough understanding of the dream, your intentions, and the anticipated end result. Without all of this knowledge in place, it would be impossible to visualize or appreciate the final result. The great American poet and columnist, James Langdon Hughes, warned us of this likelihood in a brilliantly worded statement when he wrote:

“Hold fast to your dreams. For if your dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.”

Success will happen when dreams are accompanied by an insatiable desire to continue creativity, introduce new ideas and modify original concepts. Like any flower, the dream must be kept alive, nurtured and allowed to blossom to its full beauty. When all of this is done, after the nurturing is completed and the dream becomes a reality, the joy and the contentment and the satisfaction that follows can be exquisite. As no doubt, Hughes would have joyously noted, as he joined Walt Disney and the chorus of the countless numbers of happy entrepreneurs around the world who successfully lived their dreams:

 “The beautiful-winged bird has soared up high into the heavens.”

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