The power of your dreams

Kanisa George

As life progresses, it’s easy for us to become burdened by the realities and, in some cases, unfairness that goes hand in hand with human existence.

Each new year we are blessed to experience can carry an awful amount of resistance and lethargy. It’s as if we start our journey on earth with our buckets full, and as the drudgery and mundanity of life take hold, we only move through life waiting for it to pick up again.

We falter, fail and in many ways we succeed, yet how do we remain hopeful amid grave cynicism? Is it possible for us to tap into the childhood vigour that once allowed us to believe anything was possible?

As children, we dreamt of all we could be and more. The life we want to live, the places we’ll go, and even the friends we’ll have, all surrounded by a cloud of happiness. And if there is anything I know about life, things typically don’t go as planned. Yet we move on regardless of the bitterness we sometimes feel about lost opportunities and dreams not actualised.

Life is plagued with unavoidable difficulties that we must accept, but in the process, it can lead to an overall negative outlook on life.

When the cards are stacked against us, and we conform to living a life far from what we imagine, how do we keep the magic alive? How do we tap into that childlike enthusiasm that once told us everything was possible?

Dreams or cherished ambitions or ideals are merely an idealised version of the life we want to live. Sometimes, we can make those dreams a reality with hard work, opportunity, and sheer luck. Yet even if you are unable to craft a bridge between your dreams and the real world, creating an idealised vision of your life while risky can be immensely rewarding.

Author Jill Reid believes that even if our dreams don’t see the light of day, there is something intrinsically stimulating about imagining how wonderful our future realities could be based on our needs, wants, and desires. When our dreams can have a seat at the table, we are granting ourselves the grace and confidence to look forward and work towards the future. This process helps to create an optimistic outlook on life and supports our mental and emotional capacity to grow.

One blogger wrote that your dreams are the essence of your life, for without them, there would be no ambition to chase, no goal to reach. When we’re focused on life without a prize in sight, mundanity becomes the norm, and we subscribe to a lacklustre existence that makes for an uninspired life.

Creating a blueprint for how you want your future to look has the potential to give life meaning, but can over-fantasising have the same effect? If we are wrapped up in the process of creating an ideology in our minds without any effort to achieve it, can dreams have the same positive effect on us?

Dreams can create delusions of grandeur, this from writer Paul Hudson. He believes that while dreams are critically essential and rather pleasant, they can be toxic. And this can be blamed on the process of dreaming and how it affects the rest of a person’s life rather than the dreams themselves.

It all comes down to our inability to act when we dream. Importantly, decisiveness and positive actions move our dreams from the realm of the subconscious into conscious effort. Even in those situations where we cannot fully realise our dreams and are met with inevitable disappointment, there is so much collateral beauty to experience. If we are honest with ourselves, the process of chasing our dreams teaches us invaluable lessons that we can take along our continued journey.

How do we dream without becoming dreamers?

Dreaming and doing is a two-part act; without one, the other cannot exist with real purpose. The very nature of dreaming makes everything available to us, so we are sometimes tricked into believing it can exist one day. But without real effort, dreams are merely tools used to feed a daydreamer’s addiction.

Doing and rewriting requires a lot of work without guaranteeing success. And at the end of it all, you might only have your actions to show. Colliding your dreams with effort is what matters most, along with the ability to remain grounded in the day-to-day realities of life. Because, of course, we don’t exist in our dreams.

It’s an interesting balance to strike, but nothing is more rewarding than dreaming and allowing your life to pattern the dreams you deeply desire. So without fail, keep those dreams alive.