Unrealized Dreams

We all have hopes and dreams of what may be for each of us. Many people even take the time to write out their hopes and dreams in order to develop a well-reasoned, orderly plan to achieve these lofty goals and have the fame, fortune, and future they desire. Then there is the other 99.999999999% of us who like to dream for the sake of dreaming without any hopes of actually achieving these fantasies. So many of us have either consciously or unconsciously adopted the philosophy: “If at first you don’t succeed, lower your expectations until you do.” Why do we give up on our dreams of bigger and better things and settle for the status quo, average lives that seem so mundane and minuscule?

There is a theory presented by a fine mind (modesty forbids me from telling you it’s me) that our unrealized dreams are not merely unfulfilled disasters; but are really a means to give us hope. Think about it. Let’s say you are forty-two and have not accomplished everything I..I mean YOU planned. You had such dreams of things you wanted to accomplish during the first half of your life and now you can see the big FOUR-OH has come and gone. As you take a figurative look at the list of dreams that you have never written down and wonder why you haven’t accomplished hardly anything on that list, it occurs to you: Maybe I should have written them down. After you laugh at the nonsense of the written word and impossibility of its impact on your mental state, it then crosses your mind that life is not over yet.

They say that forty is the new twenty. Of course “they” are people in their forties so there may be just an insignificant possibility of a slight bias on their reasoning. Meanwhile, the twenty-somethings are sitting there thinking, “Yeah. Right. Keep deluding yourself there grandpa.” But I digress.

If forty is middle aged, then we can consider that the dreams we had as teens and tweens are not out of reach. If (and this is a very big IF) forty is the new twenty, then there is still hope for all those unrealized dreams. But, (and this is a big BUT that may have something to do with the forties – let’s not go there today) if our dreams are not just unrealized but unattainable, I don’t think I want to know. I’m happier living in an Egyptian river than knowing that my hopes of being the bass player for the coolest rock band on the planet may be beyond my reach as a 42-year-old father.

Sweet dreams.