NEVER STOP DREAMING…

The moment you stop dreaming, you’re finished. The trouble is that it can take some time to recognize that your dreams have slowed to a halt.

For me, it generally happens after blunt trauma. Not to the head –– at least not in the physical sense –– but to the vocation.

I stopped dreaming after a client that made up 90% of my income decided to “go in a different direction”.

I stopped dreaming after discovering my “best friend” had stolen thousands and thousands of dollars from me.

I stopped dreaming after Guillotine, my third book of poetry and prose, fell flat on its fucking face, just like my two books before it.

And, in each one of these proverbial endings, it took a couple of months for me to wake up and realize my dreams had died.

I imagine this reads a bit abstract.

So, let’s get clear.

I’m not referring to the dreams I have at night when my head hits the pillow and I’m swept off into a sea of blackness.

I’m writing about the dreams I have during the day, when I’m fully conscious –– or at least mostly conscious –– I enter into a state of flow; be it in work, exercise or the completion of life’s chores.

I’ll be staring at a blinking cursor with nothing to say or in the midst of a late-night run through my neighborhood or knocking away at grass that has grown too tall in my yard, when I’m suddenly struck with this realization that in my head, I’m not reading spoken word on stage to a tight room of people underneath a flickering lightbulb nor knitting together my next piece of poetry and prose but instead, I’m thinking about my demons, my shortcomings, my failures and my disappointments; in a way, I find that I’m romanticizing them.

Some of the greatest to ever do it in their chosen vocations have made mention that it wasn’t surprising to them when they accomplished their dreams.

No. It wasn’t surprising because they admitted that they had been dreaming –– and in many ways existing in their dreams –– for the entirety of their lives.

As you navigate your life and your vocation and with it, the blunt trauma, please never allow yourself to stop dreaming for too long.

I believe that when Steve Jobs was working out of his garage, in his dreams Apple was already a global juggernaut. I believe that when Lebron James was shooting free throws in his neighborhood park, in his dreams he had already won 4 rings. I believe that when J. K. Rowling was making ends meet as a bilingual secretary, in her dreams she had already written Harry Potter.

So, no matter where you are right now in this moment, no matter how dark your life may seem, find solace in your dreams.

Find solace in your dreams because your dreams will become your reality.

Cheers,

Πηγή: coleschafer.com