Thursday, January 13, 2011

Will You Kill Your Fantasy?

Somewhere recently (I wish I could remember where)... I was reading about the idea of personal dreams, fantasies, and goals.

It’s very common for people to carry around the idea of a "life fantasy" - ways in which they would like to dramatically change their life. Because when people are not entirely happy or satisfied, they tend to daydream or fantasize about making significant life changes. Some common examples of these include:

- Someday I want to sail around the world
- Someday I want to quit my job and completely change careers
- Someday I want to teach math to 5th graders
- Someday I want to move to Key West
- Someday I want to publish a book
- Someday I want to open up a restaurant

Of course, there are a million variations on this list, but the point is that when people are unhappy, they tend to spend time dreaming about an alternative reality.

The concept that I had never considered before, the one that caught my attention, is that in order to for our dreams to become reality, we have to become willing to actually kill our dreams.

Killing the dream can be very hard for people, because the dream has been such a longtime companion - the fantasy has been like a security blanket, because it has always been a constant imaginary escape hatch. And that long time dream has been very familiar and comforting.

Whenever work sucks, or family sucks, or a relationship sucks, or the weather sucks, you can comfort yourself by fantasizing, "Well this is just temporary, because next year, I am going to____________." You can minimize your dissatisfaction by thinking, "Well sure the job stinks right now, but someday when I get to sail around the world, then I’ll finally be happy.”

That my friends, is how we rationalize our own misery. That is how we justify our own dissatisfaction. And then we go back to daydreaming about that round the world sailing trip.

The problem arises when we get so comfortable with our daydream, we are not willing to make it a reality, because that is akin to bursting the bubble, to setting fire to the security blanket. The daydream, the fantasy has been our most reliable security blanket, and really, who wants to set their security blanket on fire?

In order to change our reality, we have to be willing to kill our imaginary fantasy, the one that has kept us comfort for the past ten years. And that can be a very hard thing to do.

Which is why many people never do it. Most people don't change careers, sail around the world, move to Key West, or open a restaurant. Most people just daydream about it. And talk about it. For decades, they dream about it.

Then when they are 70 years old, they are still daydreaming about it. And that daydream has become the most familiar, comfortable, friend to them. The daydream has been a permanent substitute for the real thing.

In order to make our life extraordinary, we have to be willing to kill the daydream, kill the fantasy. We must light the match and set our security blanket on fire.

In order to create the exact life that we want, we must have the courage and the faith to say goodbye to the daydream and let go of the fantasy.  This isn't easy, but it is necessary.  

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