Touch Grass Tuesdays #3
It's Okay to Change Your Dreams
Sometimes I look at where I am in life and realize it is vastly different from where I wanted to be when I was 8. It’s not bad, but it’s not the stick-figure-mansion I imagined I’d be living in by the time I’m almost 30.
And along the way I realized that a lot of what I wanted changed. That’s to be expected because 8 year olds have no concept of time or money, but those big DREAMS with the capital letters and the stars in the sky changed little by little as reality crept in and life proved to be a little more difficult.
I still have dreams. Ambitions, aspirations, hopes, and desires. They’re more grounded and I can make more sense of them in my adulthood. I have silly dreams and big dreams and smoked-crack-on-a-pipe dreams that I’m still chipping away at every day. While living in a bouncy house is unrealistic and potentially catastrophic, getting to live in my own apartment on my own dime was a once a dream and is now my reality :)
But sometimes I think we get so attached to what a dream is, what it could represent if we pursued it and got everything we ever wished for, that sometimes we forget that dreaming is a lot of work that doesn’t really accomplish anything.
Dreams are so nebulous.
They change as we grow, and I think it’s important to remember that sometimes, dreams can just stay dreams.
By all means, follow them. Follow your dreams to the end of the rainbow and see what will be waiting for you at the end.
But don’t be discouraged if your dream changes. You change. You have every right to look at what you want and then decide to not want it anymore. As we get older, maybe it’s to start a family, settle down. Maybe it’s to leave your job and travel the world. Maybe it’s to be able to get up every morning and make yourself a cup of coffee.
There’s power in that.
Dreams follow a timeline— your timeline. The pursuit of a dream is always and no matter what, a worthy adventure. You don’t need a big dream to fend off naysayers or to convince yourself that your potential is lying dormant just until you make your dream come true. It’s the journey that matters. You matter. However you want to pursue your dreams, it will always be important because you deem it important.
Even if it changes on the daily. Even if your dreams are small. It doesn’t have to stay tethered to big, life-changing events.
It’s a privilege to be able to dream at all. To dream a little every day.
Now that’s what we need a little more of in our lives.
I know something about dreams.