They’ve been set aside, shoved beneath, and ignored long enough. Those treasured old dreams aren’t getting any closer unless you excavate them, dust them off, and have another look.
What-might-have-been is scarier left buried. Dig.
You know which dreams I’m talking about. They’ve been filed away under “If Only…” or “Could Have Been.” If you haul them out and they crumble to nothing in your hands because you’re really no longer interested, that’s wonderful. Now you’ve got an empty drawer to fill with your current dreams.
But if you weep when you finally look, if you sink to your knees and cradle the old dream in the palm of your hand, if you feel anger well up because you ignored your valuable potential for so long, it’s time to let hope reconstitute your possibilities. It’s time to have another go at it.
The cure for unfulfilled old dreams: rinse, repeat.
Maybe you stuffed that dream into a drawer long ago because when you gave it all you had, you didn’t succeed. The fact that you haven’t let it go doesn’t mean it’s a failure you can’t seem to shed. You kept that husk for a good reason. What if that crud-caked old dream’s been biding its time, waiting for the you you’ve grown into?
Dreams crave the reviving monsoon of your attention.
{PEP TALKS deliver a bracing blast of Grace }
Flickr photo: Rain on the Eiffel, by Jack Brodus.
Related reading: Pep Talk | Ditch the Chasm, Collage Vision Boards
3 Comments
I absolutely agree!
I tell folks: don’t do what I did. Everything was “someday” until I woke up in the hospital with 75% renal failure, a 48-lb ovarian cyst and Stage 1/Class 1 ovarian cancer. As I lay in bed pondering my situation, it occurred to me that “someday” was either here or in serious danger of never being.
Do what Grace says!!
Jo, you’ve been on quite a journey, it sounds like. You’re such a great, involved, encouraging voice here. I’m glad you got past that time – with revelations in tow.
To paraphrase the song says: what a long strange journey it has been!
Thanks for the kind words Grace!