Just for Today, Close Your Eyes And Imagine That Beautiful Thing as Reality

They say dreaming is free, but let’s be honest. Sometimes our minds get tired of wandering through Circe’s islands. Through those worlds painted with happiness where we meet our goals like magic.

Little by little, we lose hope in the value of our dreams because reality can sometimes be really hard. It can be bitter like a lemon. Or dark like the coffee we drink in the mornings to wake us up from our nocturnal lethargy.

We might say that it’s almost inevitable.  You stop dreaming as much as you used to, you stop wishing on shooting stars. And it’s because we’re carrying a heavy burden of unmet goals and dark disappointments.

Without realizing it, they’ve almost completely extinguished the flame in us that, for a long time, made us think anything was possible.

But here’s something worth keeping in mind. I f there’s anything that’s always defined human beings it’s our endless ability to dream.

To wonder about supposedly impossible things. To fantasize about reality until we get energized to go make it happen. It’s what sets our motivation on fire and gives us the strength and courage to continue in this endless fight. But if you stop dreaming you get left behind…

Close Your Eyes to Dream… Then Open Them to Create Your Reality

Let’s visualize for a moment a person who’s gotten tired of dreaming.  Let’s give them a face. We have to dive deeper into what’s behind their attitude.

There’s a reason that someone doesn’t dream. There’s a reason they don’t let themselves imagine different realities. It’s because they’ve simply lost hope. And there’s nothing more heartbreaking that losing hope.

Maybe they’ve convinced themselves at some point that happiness wasn’t anything but a promise to wait for on a street corner. They might’ve read a millions books on positive psychology. 

In large part, happiness means knowing how to correctly process negative emotions, the disappointments they come from, and to tolerate frustration. In this sense, a lot of times the biggest efforts aren’t rewarded with results of the same size.

What’s more, sometimes they don’t result in anything. Life is often misleading and inconsistent, and we can’t do anything about it but remember it.

But, it’s still important to every so often break out of our immediate reality to get immersed in a dream, a desire, a wish…

It’s a way of staying alive and keeping up hope. Because the spark of creativity and second chances lights up when you dream.

Henriette Anne Klauser is one of the best-known writers of personal growth, the field that gives strategies for people to think and empower their creativity.

One interesting thing she proposes in her book, “Write it Down, Make it Happen,” is that we should dream with our eyes closed. And then write down those dreams.

In reality it would be like writing a script with small long- and short-term goals. This way we can create a plan. Once it’s all written down, we’d just be missing the bravest step: opening our eyes and fighting for them. 

It’s Time to Reclaim the Dreams We Left Behind

Let’s do it, let’s close our eyes for a moment. For a second let’s go back to that person we were before. An eager, confident, maybe less experienced person.

That was when the future called out to us like a star-filled sky. It was enough to grab one to think anything was possible.

Later on, maybe, disappointments came. And that type of thinking where biases, fears, and insecurities made us say something awful: “Don’t do it, don’t dream or there will be pain”.

Randy Pausch, a well-known science professor, is known for teaching an amazing class about life and death. He said that there’s always a moment when you decide if you’re a brave person or not. 

If your heart still houses enough hope to fight for what you want. If you truly feel like you deserve the thing you dream about. And if all the answers are yes, there’s no choice but to take the step, to go for it.

To sum it all up, it’s our duty to reclaim the hopeful child we used to be. The version of ourselves that we left along the way at some point out of fear. Or because we committed the unforgivable sin of undervaluing ourselves.

So, let’s get back that innocent light from yesterday and combine it with the intelligence and experience we’ve gained.

Let’s close our eyes and imagine that the impossible is possible again. That what we want so badly will come… Let’s dream that we have enough courage to fight for what we want.

Images courtesy of The Zoork