Adult life is complex, and often we put our own dreams on hold so others can benefit from what we are willing to offer them. Usually before I go to sleep I think about what dreams I still have unfulfilled, and boy is it a list.
Some people call those unfulfilled dreams parts of a bucket list (named for things to do before one kicks the bucket). Really they are simply the carrots in front of our noses which keep us going when everything in life is making us want to stop. We live, breathe and die working to fulfill those dreams, often for years. That’s an awfully long time to chase a darned carrot.
Of course some dreams like completing medical school do take years, but the end product is personal enlightenment, humanitarian self sacrifice and some financial security, sleepless nights, chapped hands and a fried brain. Dreams like meeting a celebrity before you die can involve a burly 300-pound bodyguard and possible personal injury. Still, we hang on tenaciously to our dreams, because while they are unrealized, they still have the element of mystery and promise of happiness lingering on the thought of them.
There are charities like Make a Wish Foundation designed to help children fulfill bucket lists in a very short time frame, usually because they have a condition which will claim their lives long before graduation from high school, let alone medical school. For the rest of us, we continue to put dreams on hold and carry on with life as it is in the present.
It was the fictional George Bailey, portrayed by James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, whose dreams to travel and build were put on hold for the town, his neighbors and his family. In giving up the dreams on his bucket list, George actually found himself. Not all dreams are guaranteed to either help you find or lose yourself, but for now, just remember them before you go to sleep at night; who knows what will happen tomorrow morning.
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