dream big (in a world tough on dreamers)

Well. I have said this before … it seems like today’s world is tough on dreamers.

It is hard to be a dreamer and it seems to be easier and easier to blindly move down a beaten path <because you’ve been beaten up by Life>. By the way. This is not suggesting anyone is a “sheep.” It simply means Life is often a grind and as you make choices with regard to making Lie easier in some ways you simply choose the path most taken.

Regardless. We need to remind ourselves on occasion that it is okay to dream … and dream big and that relentlessly pursuing a dream can be inspiring <not discouraging>.

Now. Being a big dreamer doesn’t mean that you walk around with your head in the clouds. It means that you have a purpose … a big purpose that makes your life bigger and fulfills some promise within you.

Of course … as usual … the key is to find a balance. Think ground and clouds. Feet in the clouds and head on the ground. Pragmatic with no limits. A contradiction? Sure. But big dreams are a contradiction. As a practical relatively pragmatic human race we would never have them … unless some of them defied the odds and actually came true. Some really do happen.

Which reminds me <to remind everyone> that big dreams are things … not intangibles. They are not ‘becoming rich’ or ‘being a star’ … they are achieving greatness with an idea or a thought. Anyway. And while there should be a balance … there should be some big dream in all of us for a lot of reasons:

–          Sense of Self.

Big dreams have a nice habit of increasing the size of your sense of self. You have to be careful it doesn’t become bigger than yourself and consume you … but big dreams remind you that you can make a big impact in some form or fashion. Maybe not today … but a hope of sometime. Big dreams can not only create some interesting self-purpose in life but it also reminds you that anyone, even you, is capable of the extraordinary. Even if it is just in thought.

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“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose & imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.

Sir Cecil Beaton

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Maybe that is the biggest part of this ‘sense of self’ thought  … it is likely the biggest reason why you wouldn’t want to settle on small dreams … does anyone really want to be a slave of the ordinary?

–          Possibilities.

When you dream big things you will find new roads you may want to explore along the way. It is an adventure and sometimes extremely unpredictable and never ordinary. This is because big dreams can push limits of possibility <or what is possible> because it keeps the impossible in life in sight <if you can actually see something like impossible>. It all happens because big dreams are … well … not quantifiable. If they can be <in your head> I would suggest it is not really a dream but an objective or goal. A dream has to be so big it is just an idea … something difficult to put a number on it or a specific GPS coordinate. it is always somewhere on the horizon. And in reaching toward it the possibilities of new roads not taken <and never envisioned nor on any map as a matter of fact> increase significantly.

–          Achieving stuff.

Yeah. You may not actually get the big one <the big dream> but typically if you dream big, you increase the odds you actually achieve something. It also increases the odds you actually achieve something relatively great in the scheme of things. In fact. You may even end up achieving more than you ever thought you could <even if it isn’t the big dream you began with>.

Big dreams are the reasons why the world changes … and becomes better. And I say ‘world’ as in if you define it in business … or in life. It’s the reason why there have been so many inventions, new ‘out of the box’ ideas, creations or whatevers. As a business guy I love this following quote for the business big dreamers:

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“New business concepts are always, always the product of lucky foresight. That’s right – the essential insight doesn’t come out of any dirigiste planning process; it comes form some cocktail of happenstance, desire, curiosity, ambition and need. But at the end of the day, there has to be a degree of foresight — a sense of where new riches lie. So radical innovation is always one part fortuity and one part clearheaded vision.”

Gary Hamel, Leading the Revolution

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New concepts inevitably come from one part clearheaded big dreaming.

Same with new ideas. Same with anything really new … and really big. Oh. And along the way a lot of good little stuff happens too.

–          Your legacy <and big dreams>

Big dreams give you the opportunity to truly leave your mark on the world in several ways:

You achieve it.

You don’t achieve it <but achieve other shit along the way>.

You don’t achieve it <and it is left for someone else to achieve>.

The first.

The achieving one is obvious. It is satisfying and certainly something at the end of the road you will probably look back on with some satisfaction. I will mention though that most big dreamers update their dreams if they actually attain the original. You never really actually stop dreaming big <but do not tell anyone that>.

The second.

You don’t achieve it but along the road you have veered off on a variety of paths you encountered and did some good shit along the way. Your legacy is strewn with stuff you have left behind. I call this a ‘no regret’ life. You don’t really regret the missed ‘big dream’ cause you lived life doing stuff.

The third.

Oh. And not achieving the big dream … whew … what does happen to big dreams when a dreamer dies?

Here is the good news. A big dream never really dies. Only dreamers do. Someone else grabs it as their own. I think most big dreamers recognize his and are okay with it. Big dreams aren’t really meant to be owned by anyone in particular except Life. They can be achieved by someone <if they are lucky enough to figure out how to do it> but big dreams are visionary.

Some big dreams cannot be fulfilled within a single lifetime. But they are so inspiring that future generations <or someone in that generation> will strive to achieve it.

And last.

Inspiring that future?

Well. Maybe, that in itself is why people should dream big.

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Written by Bruce