Do remember when you were a kid and wanted something so badly? Wishing with all your might and power. You tightly shut your eyes and hoped when they opened it would be right in front of you. I remember that. I also remember not having very much control over getting the things I wanted. That was up to the grown-ups; my parents.
I woke up the other day and realized that those times have changed. Maybe for some of us, the change just occurred. For some of us, life has been changed for a while. The change is that we’ve grown up. We’ve left school. We make our own money now. We can buy what we want, do what we choose and generally, we don’t have to wait for anyone else’s permission.
The big difference now is that the objects of our adoration have changed. I don’t necessarily pine after the latest set of Lego blocks; I don’t want another Beanie Baby. In fact, I rarely even want things that money can buy anymore. Adults want success. We want status, influence and other abstract things like happiness. We want to reach heights that we might not think we’ll reach in the spheres of fame and love. We want recognition for doing something that we’re good at and love doing.
Life gets trickier when the things that you want most in the world you can’t buy with your freshly earned “adult money”. There’s no one to ask, there’s no one who has the power to grant us our wishes like we had when we were kids – because we want our dreams to come true. Dreams aren’t given out like birthday gifts once a year. Dreams are something you have to work towards and earned only after you’ve tried everything and given everything you’ve got.
With any dream you have, you have to decide how far you’re willing to go to get it. How much you’re willing to do and how much you’d be comfortable sacrificing. Life has a way of challenging us by throwing unexpected opportunities into the mix. Sometimes, that could be a new relationship. Sometimes, it’s an equal opportunity on a separate career path. It’s also being able to have the courage to leave the safety of one job for the uncertainty of another. I thought about this the other day when someone shared with me a quote that read – “the universe collaborates with a made-up mind”. Think back to any time you’ve had to make an important choice in your life, only to find that once you made the decision, other things around it also fell into place. For me, that seems to happen constantly. And when the choice you’ve just made concerns something important in your life, being given that confirmation lets you know that you’re on the right path or onto something good.
Chasing the dream isn’t all daisies and lollipops though. There are undoubtedly going to be setbacks, uncertainties and obstacles that you will encounter. Depending on the dream, and what you decided is the cut-off for how far you’re willing to go or how much you’ll sacrifice, you can make adjustments or persevere through those hardships. But remember this, nothing risked, nothing gained. In fact, some of the best inventions and most influential people came through the thick of it when they couldn’t see the end of the tunnel simply because they were willing to try one more time. Just one more time.
What is it that you want? What is it that you see when you close your eyes? What is it that your soul wants to breathe in and your heart wants to hold? Find that thing. Set your goals. Chase that dream. And keep hitting the checkpoints on the long road you’re paving for yourself; your legacy. Trust me, if you’re living out a life that isn’t meant for you because you’re too afraid to take a chance at what you really want then you are wasting time being less happy than you could be. And what’s the point of that?
THINGS GUEST: Kyle Schmalenberg
