There is a moment when you are faced with the real possibility that the dream that you have dreamed your whole life will not come true. It is a sacred moment of raw reality. Have you seen that famous scene in Les Miserable when Fantine is brought to that point? She had imagined–fantasized–how her life would turn out. And her fall is so tragic and heart-wrenching because she believed in that dream so intensely. Indeed, her pain is proportional to the bliss that she had imagined.
And here lies a key real-life formula. When we allow ourselves to dream, to really let go without any fear, to indulge in a future fantasy with absolute assurance that what we mentally create will actually come to pass, we must also accept the hard-lined no-nonsense deal that failure must be an option. The thrill of an ascent only exists because we are defying the cold laws of gravity. The higher we soar the harder we may fall. Thus, some have opted not to ascend altogether, to play it safe, to be content. It’s a safe option and there is no dishonor in taking it. But it is an choice that dulls the potential flavors that life has to offer. Most of us, though, I think take the risk and at some point find ourselves at the edge of a soul-shattering drop. How we handle the next step reshapes who we are forever. The spectrum of results is wide. There are countless stories of people facing that reality and overcoming. There are an equal number of anecdotes of people falling tragically only to find that they have learned something valuable from the experience…eventually. And of course there are the tragic extremes to both of these examples.
But what if we’re misunderstanding it all? What if all of that energy we invest in dreaming and fantasizing is misguided? What if somehow we were able to fantasize about what we already have instead of what we will or might have someday? What if our future plans were just plans and not dreams and all of that left-over energy went into the daily celebration of our current life? Think how things might change.