Every once in a while I am drawn out of my pondering of the
past and given the opportunity to dream about the future. Thinking about the future isn’t something I
easily do. I’ve lived my life in so many places and with so many people over
the last couple years that I find it difficult to let myself dream. I’m weighed
back by the understanding that I am completely incapable of making any accurate
predictions. I can honestly say that I have no idea where I will be a year from
today. I don’t know what country I’ll live in. I don’t know who my friends will
be. I don’t know if I’ll be single. I don’t know if I’ll live alone. I don’t
even know if I’ll have a job.
That makes dreaming feel dangerous. It feels like placing
some sort of bet that I might loose. What if I dream of being in one place and
end up in a completely different place? What if the people I want to be a part
of my life a year from today no longer live in the same hemisphere? What if I
don’t end up with a job that I find even vaguely fulfilling or any job at all?
I can think
of plenty of reasons not to dream, but then, suddenly I am given the
opportunity to dream. Last night I sat around a small table listening to weird
music and drinking boba tea with some of my friends and, in a way, we started
to dream. We began to think of names for a joint blog. I have no idea what will
become of that blog. Maybe we’ll actually start it, maybe we wont. Maybe ten
years down the road we’ll be a team of super-bloggers, but more than likely it
will become another website we visit when we want to reminisce about the good
old days. We don’t actually know how it will end but that doesn’t mean we
shouldn’t dream.
In allowing
myself to dream I can realize the potential God has given me. I was made to
grow and I was made to live out dreams. That is the most motivating and
invigorating thing I have realized lately. When I dream I give myself a reason
to live differently, a reason to follow a different path. Dreaming is
essentially the key to not just living in the moment. My dreams are the reason
I keep going to school, keep running, keep reading.
I know that I
tend towards ‘live-in-the-moment’ thinking. If you gave me a full tank of gas I
would be more likely to use it on an adventure that would last a single day
than I would be to use it to get to work and to run the errands I know I need
to run. Dreams are my main incentive for countering my live-in-the-moment
tendencies. They are my motivation for reading tough books, for seeking
friendships that last longer than a few months, and for returning to a school
that has put me further in debt than I want to admit.
It’s time to
put aside instant gratification for a little while and embrace the deeply
invigorating, fulfilling, and motivating act of dreaming.
