Catching Your Dreams
I’ve been listening to a celebrity memoir on audio book and marveling at how easily everything falls into place in the story. I’m sure that living his life is very different; that his memoir is the literary equivalent of a curated Instagram feed. Maybe that’s why I’m not naming the memoir. I have zero clue if this actor is the type of person who has a Google alert on their name and will admonish me for this take-away. But all I have to go on are the words on the recording, and those words make things sound very easy, including success the very first time he and his partner tried to conceive.
Not that I wanted them to struggle, but this is success #582958 in the book, so the words “of course” moved across my brain in that moment like ticker tape.
I was recently reading The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness, and the mother and son are having a conversation about the mother’s political campaign. She’s been waiting for a certain position to open, and she’s currently running for that office. It seems likely that after years and years of waiting, this is going to happen for her. And she has decided that this is the time to dump her heart out to her son. She says on page 155:
“What do you do when your dreams are about to come true?” she asks. “No one ever tells you. They tell you to chase them, but what happens when you actually catch one?”
So little is written about what happens next. The self-help books seem to take you right up to the moment of success and then step back, as if the only option when you catch your dream is to live happily ever after.
The truth is that sometimes you catch your dreams and you realize that the reality is very different from what you imagined when you were working towards the goal. The heart is terrible at knowing what will make it happy. And other times you catch your dreams and it’s bliss upon bliss. It’s exactly what you hoped.
I was thinking about this quote as I listened to the celebrity memoir because there is no chase. There’s just a short queue in front of each dream, and he gets into the line, waits for relatively short amount of time, and collects the dream. And I was thinking about what is lost and what is gained without the chase.
2 comments
I wonder if the chase adds to the appreciation? Not that someone who didn’t chase, cannot be thankful or appreciative of their dreams – but I really think there is so much value in a chase as it teaches us WHY we want what we want and HOW to get there.
I also think the chase is dependent on what you view as “the chase”. I have a good friend who has had some fortunate experiences – and she thinks that any work at all to obtain something is “chasing” it. I.E: Attending a job interview is “chasing”. My other friend has had more than her share of negative experiences and only views the exhausting, life altering chases as “chases”. I.E: Losing 200 lbs through daily working out and diet overhaul is “chasing”.
Both of these women identify “the chase” based on how easily most things come to them in life – and I think that is fairly common and completely changes your perspective on the chase. It’s still important – but it’s very different depending on perspective.
I, too, often worry about what will happen when I actually achieve my dreams. So much time, energy and money has been thrown into the chase – but what about after? I guess the key is that life is a chronic game of chance and skill – and learning to maneuver the surprises is as/or more important than the actual surprises.
I waited and tried for three years for a certain job. I was elated when I got it even though it meant I would have to put my son in preschool instead of homeschool. I still loved the job when it didn’t make me enough money to get my own apartment and yet decreased our food assistance. I found things to enjoy and ways to improve even when I was sick repeatedly. I left after four months because even though I really wanted that job, I was being ganged up on and treated very badly. Emotionally, I couldn’t handle it anymore and that dream of a job made me want to crash my car to end up in the hospital and have a break from it. It was terrible and I had so much guilt about abandoning yet another dream.