Living our dreams is a phrase we hear often and probably, if you're anything like me at least, spend much of your time and day thinking and contemplating about how you can do them more -- more of what you really want to do with your life. The funny thing with our dreams is that life really doesn't seem to care much at all if we live them or not. The sun still shines every day on us all, the wind blows, the flowers sprout and bud, the dogs and cats do their thing, the kids go to school and laugh and dance and cry. Ultimately we are the only ones who really end up caring if we live our life or not; everyone else is a bystander at best and not even affected at worst. Oftentimes it seems to be a discouraging thought or idea to follow my dreams. The concept is so nebulous at times, so inconceivable or abstract that what it actually looks like "in the here and now" eludes even the better parts of my awareness at times. To plan long-term, perhaps to strategize or scheme or consider various possibilities and scenarios -- these are not always easy to do and then add on top of all this the fact that I'm so interested and drawn to so many different and at times opposing pursuits, that it isn't too long before, as I say, I feel discouraged, lost, depressed, and/or confused with what the heck to do next and where to go from here, wherever that be today, this day.
If you can relate to these issues at all, then this article may be worthwhile for you to read, because I am here to share with you about the power of doing it, and how I focused upon and lived out one of my own personal life-long dreams and how the journey itself was definitely part of the destination and enjoyment of it all, and how much relief and quiet and peace were tangible results which I experienced upon completing my journey and goal and dream as it were. You see I just finished hiking 120 miles through the backcountry of the Sierra Wilderness here in California. 80-90 of those miles were done off trail, out in the pure wilderness of the Sierras, where my hiking partner and I had to map our terrain, orient ourselves, and go up, over, and down extreme passes in order to continue on our journey. It was an incredible experience to say the least, and is something I've been wanting to do for many, many years. Finally, I can say that I've done it, and as a matter of fact it looks like I'm already beginning to plan another trip next summer doing another 80 miles or more because I loved it so much. This article, however isn't so much about my own personal journey and expedition, although maybe that is worth another article sometime! This article is about the value and significance and ultimate need for each of us to follow our hearts, live out our dreams, and go do those things we want to do with ourselves and in our lives. I am thoroughly convinced, now more than ever before, that we as humans, living and walking upon this Earth, must do what we want to do in our lives otherwise we very well may face certain death, destruction, disease, and perhaps other less subtle and dire consequences like unhappiness, depression, anger, boredom, impotence (yikes!). Really when I think about it, there isn't much more purpose in my life than to do what I want to do with what I have been gifted with, that is to say my life, while I'm here on this Earth. And really is it any different for anyone else here? Of course, as I say, doing all of this is at times easier said than done. We all seem to have "ties that bind" us in our lives, or at least so it would seem, that can easily make for living out our dreams a nuisance at best and a near impossibility at worst. Nevertheless I am here to say that it is of great importance and value to each of us to DO IT ANYWAY! Somehow, some way, making it happen for ourselves, doing those things that matter and mean a lot to us, those things that haunt our brains and stalk our hearts day in, day out, cycling back upon us each season, every couple months, every morning perhaps! These are important, and their call must be heeded.
I know in my case with this latest adventure that it did require some work and sacrifice, those things seem to go with the territory of both following dreams as well as following nightmares, have you noticed that?!?! If it's going to require us to work and sacrifice either way, then we might as well choose our dreams right! I suppose for me, speaking for myself here, it's this whole idea of work and sacrifice at all that gets me discouraged from time to time - I mean why the heck do I have to deal with work and sacrifice at all to do things that I want to do! I can understand work and sacrifice for things that I don't want to do. Now of course there are some people who say they don't work anymore, because they love what they do so much that there is no work for them anymore, there is no sacrifice anymore, and that may be true for them and I think that's just fantastic, however for me and my home I must admit that I just haven't found anything where work and sacrifice weren't a part of the package deal. Even when I was hiking cross country through the Sierras for 120 miles, I had to work and sacrifice significantly every day, nearly all day in fact. It was hard work, but I loved it, and I found great value in it, and I would go right back today and do it all again no question. And so I suppose my purpose here with all of this is to lay down on the table for all to see what exactly was involved in my journey and following my dream in this regard and how it all came to pass as it were in hopes that you too might be inspired and ignited and choose to enlist yourself into your own next dream and major bucket list item.
One of the most interesting results I have found with living out and following my dream has been the quiet and peace and rest I've experienced inside myself upon returning. I am more quiet and calm and peaceful inside. My body is relaxed. Things around me seem to fall off me a bit easier, indeed they don't even seem to attach to me as much either. Life is passing more visibly in front of me like a meadow stream as I stand on the bank observing and enjoying all before me. I find this peace and this centered calm and this larger and greater sense of myself and who I am inside and in this world to be one of the absolute greatest results or benefits of living out my dream. That part of me that was yearning and crying out for this experience has been heard and is actually satiated and satisfied now. It has been respected, loved, cared for, honored, and because of that it is now peaceful, friendly, alive, calm, understanding. These are powerful qualities to radiate and to experience more deeply within myself, and I can only imagine what our world and society would look and feel and sound like if more of us experienced the same or something similar thanks to living out more of our dreams deep within.
I suppose our lives can really be a journey wherein we "hopscotch" from dream to dream, fulfilling our lives out like leap frogs in a lily pad pond. And why not right? I mean what else are we going to do with ourselves while we're down here on earth? Work all day and pay for a home and a car and kids and all of that? I mean sure why not if that's your dream! By all means! Whatever it is, let each and every one of us go for it unabashedly as well as responsibly, clearly, methodically, and recklessly. Mistakes will surely be made along the way to fulfillment, and that is fine, because the honest truth is that mistakes will be made either way just as work and sacrifice will be required regardless as well.
Life does seem to be quite a complicated experience where many "moving parts" all seem to collide and interact with each other like the innards of a sophisticated watch or clock. Nevertheless our purpose here on earth seems decidedly simple - to live out our dreams one moment to the next as best we can, however we see and feel and find them. We each must take ourselves as we are, accept our circumstances and limitations and constraints as we find them around and before us, and just as equally, if not more so, embrace the reality that we can, with a little bit of time, support, energy, and ingenuity overcome all things before us, so that we can each truly accomplish what we came here to do and to experience, that we may all have more of the peace, the power, the calm, and the quiet of looking upon another of our dreams now realized.