Dreams

God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow in them. -- Author Unknown

What are your dreams? When we were young we were full of dreams. We were going to change the world. I know when I was a pre-teen I was going to stop all the pollution by shutting down the factories. Then slowly our parents and teachers and other important people in our lives convinced us those dreams were unrealistic and we forgot about them because we were focusing on what seemed practical.

But deep inside us we still have our dreams. We still want to make a big difference in the world somehow. We want to be rich and famous, but most of all when it comes down to it we want to significantly improve at least certain people's lives. We want to help, to be useful to people. We want to be able to put our talents to good use making our community, and our world, a better place to live in. Unfortunately many of us need to first of all find out what our talents are before we can figure out how to use them in the way that will benefit the most people the best way.

When we bring our dreams out into the open and acknowledge them, they typically seem unrealistic, too much for one person to manage. This is because we are not yet able to acheive them. But we can always learn and grow into the person who can acheive them. It is the truth that only challenges and obstacles cause us to grow and improve. If our dreams were easy to acheive we would become lazy and stagnant. We are meant to grow into our dreams. We are meant to be continually improving, to become good enough people to actually make our dreams come true. We are meant to overcome our challenges and succeed in fulfillng our dreams. That struggling and then the joy of succeeding is the purpose of our lives

Pain

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pa...in is self-chosen. --Kahlil Gibran

It is so easy to miss the daily miracles of your life, as you hurry to complete the goals you set for yourself, or those that someone else set for you. We seldom stop and smell the roses in our rush to get to our appointments. We rush to deal with what seems most urgent, forgetting about what is most important. Even watching TV in the evening often seems more important than listening to your family, or doing anything that requires thought (My opinion is that watching TV is the most significant and most prevalent time-waster there is for most people).

We spend most of our time wishing that we were more happy. Perhaps if the appointment goes well, or when I get my vacation, or when I find a new lover. We can't stand being sad or frustrated or disappointed, and we avoid it like the plague. We don't appreciate that without the bad times, we would never appreciate the good ones. Nor do we appreciate that because we are human, there will always be both good times and bad times, just as surely as winter is always followed by spring and fall is always followed by winter. We miss the lessons that the bad times are intended to teach us. All we think about is how to avoid them.

Much of our pain is self-chosen. For one thing, it is we who choose to see it as pain, instead of a lesson which is intended to benefit us and an opportunity to learn and grow into a better person. For another thing, we choose to see it as something that can and should be eradicated, instead of as a necessary part of our lives and one that makes us appreciate the good times so much more. Finally, we are so focused on the pain we have labeled as such and want to get rid of, that we fail to notice how wonderful life really is, and how everything that happens to us is actually good for us. If we see "bad" events as useful and necessary lessons for us and focus on all the wonderful things there still are in our lives, we will feel a lot less pain and a lot more happiness.

Happy

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life." — John Lennon

What really is the meaning of life? When you were asked as a child what you wanted to be when you grew up. what did you say? Perhaps a firefighter, or an Olympic champion, or a pirate, or a superhero. Probably not the same thing you would say if you were asked now, and probably nothing like what you actually are today. At some point, we learn that our childhood ambitions are not realistic and we settle for some career that we think we can manage.

I could never understand why people ask me where I wanted to be in five years, or have a ready answer. Never mind planning twenty years or so ahead. It only takes a few minutes to radically change your life situation, and life is so unpredictable. You never know what opportunities are going to present themselves for you, or what obstacles are going to appear to seriously restrict your options. You could die tomorrow. So why is it so important who you think you will be when you grow up?

It would seem more important to consider what you want to be right now, that could continue into the future no matter what life threw at you. Whatever we want in life, we want it for one reason only. Because it will make us happy to whatever degree. Happy is what we really all want to be when we grow up, whether we are happy being a superhero or an accountant. John Lennon understood life where his teacher did not.
His mother was right when she said that happiness was the key to be life. Go out there and be happy. That's what life is all about.

Planned

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." --Joseph Campbell

Many of us cling for dear life to the life we've planned, the life we've always known. We plan our lives according to what we've known already, perhaps what our parents lived or what our friends or the people around us are living. It is what we are familiar and comfortable with. Even if our parents, friends, or loved ones are not doing particularly well with their lives, we still assume it must be the right one for us. We identify with our loved ones and even our neighbors and think we are supposed to be like them.

But we are not like them. We are unique individuals with our own unique destiny. We all have different strengths and weaknesses, and even desires, and must find our own unique direction in life. If we continue to do the same things as the people around us, we will never rise above them, or live the life that we were meant to. We will not be able to utilize our strengths most effectively or be truly happy in what we do. We will only acheive what other people want, not what we truly desire.

In order to be truly successful, we must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. We are more than just the some of our past experience. We are whole and perfect beings whose pathway to learning and growing was charted before we were born; and now we need to be looking for clues as to how to proceed along that path. Always look towards the future, towards emerging opportunities to live the life you were meant to live. And never compare yourself with other people and the lives they are living. There is a unique pathway to success waiting for you if you will just keep an eye out for it.