Living in the present is a goal that most of us have heard about or have been actively working towards. Pulling our energy out of the future and back from the past so that we can be alive here and now is taught in many traditions.
But what about our dreams? In the culture we are supposed to have dreams in our youth, which we stick to, or give up, or chase, or realize. It is generally recognized that having dreams is a good thing (unless all you ever do is dream), but that in practice many of us should “face reality”, grown up and put them away.
Giving up on our dreams, as you know, is dieing inside. Our dreams come from Spirit and our soul, and in giving them up we lose ourselves. So we should stick with our dreams, in spite of mixed social messages.
Recently I was working with someone and I realized that their space was full of old dreams. This is partly due to the funny things that time has been doing lately, so the “usual” linearity has begun to scramble a bit, meaning that the phrase “all things are now” is happening more obviously.
As I looked at these dreams though I noticed that being “old” they were therefore out-of-date. They had been dreamt in the past and had not really changed. Like many old things, frozen in time (even though they were wandering into the present), they were also somewhat lifeless.
It became clear that not only do we need to keep our dreams, but we should be refreshing them, letting them evolve with us and our experience and situation in the world. Perhaps more than other aspects of life they should not be cast in stone.
Imagine an artist who has a vision and then endlessly repeats the same work of art. What starts fresh and full of life and insight, becomes old and stale. The dreams of our youth, should not be given up, but they should be allowed to evolve.
How many ways do those of us who hold our dreams become trapped in them? Dreams are not something that should hold us hostage; they should set us free. Just as we know that dreaming someone else’s dream is unlikely to satisfy our soul, dreaming an old dream is also out of sync with who we are today.
“Living the dream” is not acting out a dream from long ago, but speaks to allowing your dream to live, to grow and change, just as you do.
May your dreams be always fresh and full of joy and life.
(© 4/2009)
