Day 156: I think I know what I want

So recently I listened to a radio podcast, and at one point the discussion veered into what everyone wanted to do with their life as a child. Everyone explained what their childhood dream for the future was, and one of the presenters brought up a point that I am going to look at in this blog.

He said "The problem is you think you know what you want, and then when you get there as an adult, a lot of the time it is not what we expect in our mind". I find this point interesting, because we have all had a dream that we wanted to achieve as children in our mind - and just in general the mind exaggerates everything to the point that the reality of the dream we want to achieve can rarely match our expectation. Most people don't pursue or lose interest in that dream in teenage/young adult life, then in adult years most of us have not achieved the dreams we wanted to achieve as children in anyway.

What happens is that as we get older, the cold reality of this capitalist money system becomes clearer and clearer to us, and essentially we soon realise that we have to take whatever opportunity comes our way, whether we have a passion for it or not. I mean how many people in today's world can say that they really enjoy the work that they do? Not a massive percentage of humanity that's for sure.

Its like once people realise how much hard work it will take to even actualise their dreams, a defeatist attitude becomes stronger and stronger as we get older. For instance if you ask most kids if they think they will be in charge as a boss when they get older, they will say yes, but if you ask most adults this same question, most will say no, which is why most adults can accept themselves as an employee only instead of a company owner.

Then as we settle into our life of mediocrity, we accept that which we feel our life is telling us - which is we are just slaves, minor, insignificant beings, that can now only live a life of paying bills and constantly fighting to stay away from poverty. We lose the passion to pursue the dreams we once had, we start believing that our dreams are meaningless to pursue because our life apparently "proves" to us that dreams do not become reality, and many of us possibly may have a life structure in place now that makes it physically impossible to pursue our childhood dreams even if we want to - kids, animals, disabilities, mental issues, lots of debt obligations and bills etc. These points are often life long responsibilities to deal with for many.

However this allowance of capitalism to crush our dreams in our minds as we grow up is incredibly limiting - I myself can attest to multiple missed opportunities in my life to pursue various passions I have, all due to accepting the limiting thoughts based in self-doubt that my dreams are "unattainable".

I know of various friends and acquaintances worldwide that took self-responsibility for their mind, did not allow these thoughts to direct their future, and instead re-wired themselves and their life with self-will and determination to now be living out their dreams, so there is no doubt that dreams can be realised in this world - but the very nature of how capitalism is structured currently does not allow the majority to do this.

Then when we look at when a person does pursue the dream they think they are passionate for, but when they make it to the top of the field they are passionate for, they actually realise that they do not actually like the reality of how the field works.
As a child it seemed like it would be such an amazing career to have, but then after all the hard work to get to the top of this field, the person finds that there is politics, backstabbing, and a host of other points that now causes a person to see their once dream childhood career as a nightmare come to life -
for example how many actors, muscians, artists, scientists, inventors, designers etc all around the world actually would avoid their career if they could go back in time? A lot I would say, all because of thinking they knew how their dream career worked before they got there, then when they get there, it was totally different to what they thought it was, and so this person became depressed, disillusioned and confused with their life, and thus became a less effective member of society.

In this context this is a problem with people chasing what they believe are their dreams -  it can shatter a person when they don't attain them, or if they are not what the person imagined. In this world of capitalism that we currently have, nothing is what it seems, no matter how good something looks to us, their is always likely another story laying underneath, beautiful on the outside/a horror story inside, everything is in reverse essentially.

Once we have spent a long time to attain anything and then we are massively disappointed and sad  with what we attain it is understandable. But it must also be considered that, although it is never enjoyable to be disappointed after a lot of hard work, there is no end point to what our passions and dreams are - there are always new passions to be lived and new dreams to be actualised in our experience, learning is constant, and if anyone pushes themselves to have introspection, they may find they have a lot more passions then what they first thought. There are passions that many of us have forgotten about, buried in our unconscious in the very cells of our body - a bit total recall and we may be surprised that it is no big deal if one of dreams don't pan out because in reality we all have many, our eggs are not all in one basket.

So the point of this blog is not to say a person should or shouldn't chase their dreams, but rather that if you have a life of dignity and you have a passion - then do your best to drive for this passion to be become realised in physical reality, but at the same time be prepared for the reality of your dreams to not be what is expected, to make sure that no matter what happens, there is no separation in ourselves that we allow between expectation and reality -- where regardless of what happens, I will dedicate myself to live life in a way that is best for all. So if my dreams are actualised or not - whether my dreams are as good as I thought they would be or not -- I will still be me regardless - here as breathe living in equality and oneness.

Join me in my next blog as i continue this point.