Death of a Dream

Things are the way they are. The world is simply as it is. However, this is not enough. We want to have more. So we create a dream. Dreams are powerful. When followed, they close down certain possibilities for our future and open up others. They guide our choices.

Dreams are not reality; nothing from their imagined future is certain. This is where pain and suffering begins. You follow your dream, but not everything matches your vision, and one of a few different things happens. We can realise that the dream is diverting away from reality and update the dream, or we can work to try and align reality again with the dream.

This attempt to make reality conform to the dream is a recipe for suffering. Whenever you fight reality you suffer, it's painful to resist the reality you have and fight for one that never existed. Previously we had a dream, and now we have a battle, a battle where we want the dream to win and reality to change.

Reality is going to change, that is certain. If it goes the way of our dream, we celebrate, and if it doesn't, we resist. However, there is another option. Avoidance. The dream no longer matches life. We avoid acknowledging this; we do our best to ignore it and pretend, at least to ourselves that everything is going as we imagined. Maybe it starts off as a small difference between the dream and reality, but over time this gap becomes so wide you can no longer ignore it. This is when dreams die.

Dreams die every day. When we let go of a dream, this is a kind of death. A certain possibility for the future dies. Letting go of the part of yourself, you invested in this dream is painful. It leaves an emptiness inside.

Enjoy your dreams while you have them and say goodbye with gratitude when it's their time to move on.