Why Living the Dream Isn’t the Goal

Ah, living the dream. Books have been written and companies have been founded on this idea of living the dream. We all have dreams. Maybe your dream is to sell your startup and retire at age 40. Maybe your dream is to become a well-known author. Maybe your dream is to buy a small island and start your own country. Maybe your dream is to become a top-rated online poker player. Maybe your dream is to travel to every country in the world. Maybe your dream is to earn an honest living doing something you love.

These are all wonderful and worthy aspirations to work towards. The danger is that too much attachment to “living the dream” can lead us to have a misguidedly one dimensional focus. It may lull us into buying the comforting thought that once we do this, or once we get there, or once we have that, everything else will fall magically in place. But a single milestone accomplishment can never unlock the wonders of a life well-lived. Having tunnel vision can take you out of presence, so you miss out on your life as it is happening right now.

“Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Another thing to watch for when in hot pursuit of “living the dream”: make sure you wrestle that dream to the ground with a healthy dose of reality, so you’re not surprised or disappointed when you get there. Don’t pin your hopes on a dream may that is desirable only because it is unattainable. Living the dream is not the aim. The hope is that we can live rich, full lives, rooted in reality, here on Earth, as our authentic selves, with our issues, warts and all.

One important truth is often missed by many inspirational speakers and writers when they’re painting a compelling vision of “living the dream” in order to draw you forward into action. When you start to turn up the volume and intensity of your life (aka “living the dream”), it doesn’t mean that you’ll suddenly become immune to hardship and struggle. In fact, it is usually the opposite. Leaving the safety and security of what you know almost guarantees there will be more hardship for you, at least in the near term. We intuitively know this on some level. This is why it’s often hard to take the first steps to change, even when we know change is needed. But if you find the courage, your life will likely be richer for it.

0 Comments

It’s Time to Choose Your Team

If you managed to find your way to these words and have the leisure time to read, you can trust that you are among the most privileged beings to be walking the Earth in 2023. Maybe you have noticed that humanity is in...

Integrating and Relaunching the New “Me”

2023 has been quite the trip for me… What a wild time to be your own boss, navigating the stewardship of an unwitting brand identity. Despite a lot of noise I’ve been hearing about new platforms, ever narrower...

Five Things to Consider Before Hiring a Spiritual Business Coach

I have seen a lot of spiritual influencer-teacher types within my extended orbit reinventing themselves as business coaches, abundance gurus and wealth mentors lately. And beyond my circle of acquaintances, I notice...

The Blessings of Rejection

I am learning to love rejection as an inevitable and instructional part of the creative process, and living a creative life, as this book I am writing is also writing me. Sometimes it’s not clear who is creating...

This is Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work

Many will use it to look back on our experiences and lessons from the past year. And many will spend time dreaming and planning around what we’d like to achieve, feel, create or become in the year ahead. Traditionally, this is the time for making resolutions or setting intentions. There are three major reasons why this process – repeated by millions of people around the world year after year after year – almost never creates meaningful change in our lives.

Voting for Pleasure Over Pressure

What does the politics of sex have to do with the purpose of our work? They are connected with one simple shift: voting for PLEASURE over PRESSURE. Politics of sex, and work Patriarchal power dynamics pervade our...

How to Practice Purpose

I have been seeing many ads lately that entice with the promise to help me figure out or find my life purpose. They imply solutions that the teacher has earned through hard work… trade secrets that can be...

Staying Small and Going Slow

I get a lot of well-meaning advice about how I could build my retreats to scale (be BIG!), or how I could spread my biodegradable glitter empire (grow FAST!). All of this advice comes with good intentions and a desire to see me ‘succeed’ – but it misses the point.