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Fly into space, become a ballerina, travel around the world … Where did our youthful dreams go? What prevented us from implementing them? And isn’t it time to bring magic back to our world?
Close your eyes and remember. Your childhood dreams were so vivid, so real! You were an adventurer, a dancer or a firefighter, you built a ship or flew through the air, you lived among wolves and lions… You felt with your whole body what these dreams gave you – joy, power, freedom. Everything seemed possible.
What have we done with all this? This is not about specific desires, but about the courage to dream, about this impulse, about reckless faith in oneself.
Someone will sigh in response, someone will be indignant. Many of us are sure that an adult does not need to hover in the clouds, he must be a realist. What kind of cranes are there in the sky, when even a titmouse gets into hands with great difficulty. Dreams, they will say, are the lot of youth that does not know life.
Sociologists confirm this: two-thirds of those who dream are people under 35 years old. No, the wise ones, of course, are also capable of dreaming, but their dreams are practical and almost certainly feasible.
Abandoning a dream is explained by the fact that uncertainty is unbearable for us.
Even if we think perfectly sensibly, it is still obvious: something is wrong with us. According to the recruiting site HeadHunter, 81% of employees in Russian companies would like to change their profession. Moreover, 30% of them believe that they are not in their place, 29% – that they cannot be realized, a quarter were disappointed in the profession, 22% complain of professional burnout, one in ten did not achieve success in work. Against this background, there are very few of those who are not satisfied with the salary – 29%. This means that the vast majority are dissatisfied with the essence of their work. However, only a third decide to change their profession!
“We are afraid of disappointment, failure,” comments psychoanalytic psychotherapist Svetlana Fedorova. “But to an even greater extent, the rejection of the dream is due to the fact that we cannot withstand uncertainty, it can be unbearable for us.”
Essential depression
A vague but ever-present dissatisfaction with life can also be felt by those who seem to have everything in order: with a career, and with a family, and with money.
“Often this feeling comes at the age of about 40,” notes Svetlana Fedorova. – Man has already achieved a lot and can afford a variety of pleasures. But in fact, nothing brings him real joy. At the same time, he does not ask himself: is this really what I want? Am I living the life I want?
A person does not hear himself, he is not able to understand the signals of his psyche
This is one of the problems of modern consumer civilization. It offers us a lot of temptations, and we replace the real, our own dream with a smaller, artificial one, imposed from the outside.
“Western thinkers are talking more and more about essential depression,” continues Svetlana Fedorova. – A person does not hear himself, he is not able to understand the signals of his psyche. In a way, he becomes a robot. As studies by French psychoanalysts show, this leads to a variety of somatic problems. The body begins to signal that everything in our life is not as good as it seemed to us.
Sometimes it’s just a temporary breakdown, lack of energy. But it can also lead to serious illnesses. Increasingly, apparently well-off clients are asking for help, says psychotherapist Ines Weber, who at the same time feel guilty because they don’t have “real problems”.
And the psychotherapist states: “In the end, I realized that they come to me not to solve their problems, but to defend the right to their aspirations, to a more genuine development of themselves and life itself.” This request is more of a spiritual order: how to become yourself?
A vague object of desire
Why else fulfill your dreams, if not to be in harmony with your deepest nature? But how can this be achieved? Realize fantasies? Set goals and achieve them? And what dream are we talking about?
Psychoanalysis distinguishes between “desires” – the sum of our aspirations that we can formulate, and the unconscious deep “desire” to which all these individual aspirations refer.
The primary desire, writes psychoanalyst Gerard Bonnet, “does not miss a single opportunity to make itself heard, to pave its way, so that the bearer of desire can embody it in his actions, in his own project, creativity, lifestyle, even if at the same time he constantly feels that it’s all fragile that it’s always not quite right.” Our whole existence is directed to the search for a “vague object of desire” that nourishes our vitality, but remains fundamentally unattainable for us.
Our goals will bring us satisfaction and self-realization only when they answer this secret deep request. And for this it is necessary to make decisions, not focusing on the models accepted in society, but in accordance with the internal impulse. But how can you hear it?
develop imagination
This question is especially relevant if we have long ceased to listen to our desires and no longer feel what we really want. “Those who have no plans are not without desire,” says Gerard Bonnet. But you need to search for him, patiently and without respite.
Here is one of the ways that the psychoanalyst offers. Our desire was born in childhood, when we passionately wanted to find an object (object, ability, person) that would allow us to endure trials, face a rival, “turn anxiety into a driving force.”
What was it? We no longer remember. But the desire itself is reproduced, such is its inherent property. It is repeated in encrypted form, as Freud noted, in our dreams. That’s where we can find it! Therefore, experts recommend writing down dreams, noticing recurring motifs that tell us both about our nature and about new possibilities for realizing our “I”.
Following your dreams doesn’t have to mean a dramatic change in your life.
Svetlana Fedorova suggests focusing not on the events of a dream, but on the experiences associated with it: “Dreams are important for their feelings. We need to catch those that give us pleasure, to catch the state of inspiration, happiness. Do not be afraid and not ashamed if what you see in a dream seems unacceptable to us. Just let it be, marvel at your unconscious. With surprise begins the ability to dream. After that, we will be able to bring inspiration from the realm of sleep into our real life.”
Following your dreams does not necessarily mean a dramatic change in life: work, partner, home or country. This is possible if there are no other ways out of an intolerable situation, and this, of course, requires great courage. Sometimes despair pushes us to give up everything, to destroy what we have, in the hope of someday building our lives anew. But this is not a path to a dream, but an escape from reality, warns Svetlana Fedorova.
In most cases, our dream and the reality of our life today have points of contact: we just have to find them, and then we will discover the potential for creativity and development in what we already have.
“Don’t Clip Your Children’s Wings”
Little children, playing, portray beautiful princesses and brave knights. When they get older, they themselves do not know what to dream about and which path to choose. How can we help them identify their desires and live the life that suits them? Reflects the philosopher and psychotherapist Nicole Prieur.
Psychologies: When we ask teenagers what they want to do in the future, we see that they are very pragmatic, as if they no longer allow themselves to look at life broadly …
Nicole Prieur: Indeed, teenagers come to me for an appointment, their desires seem to have disappeared, the adults crushed them so much with their anxiety: “This is not specific, unrealistic, you will not succeed.”
The anxiety of the elders is understandable: the professional world is harsh. However, it makes you see only the vulnerability of the child, and not his capabilities. Parents want to fit him into a safe pattern, instead of supporting the desire to do what he really wants.
In addition, parents often have to endure a lot in life themselves, and they never tire of reminding their teenagers of this: “Adult life is not a holiday every day, if you suddenly think that I’m having fun here.” And thus they clip their wings, undermine the hope of truly realizing themselves.
So, in order to support their dreams, we must first work on our own views that limit us?
Yes. We must ask ourselves what frightens us so much that we are ready to trample on their desires. After all, to take your place in life, you need strong motivation, fueled by dreams. We should encourage their imagination by asking, “What is a successful life for you? If you had a magic wand, where would you be and what would you do? I really like adolescence, because it can be a reason for our growth: children are looking for themselves and encourage us to do the same.
This is the right moment to regain your ability to dream and hope for change. We are able to show them that at any age it is possible to take an active position in relation to life, to enjoy it. But it must be more than just words. This must be shown by personal example, otherwise we will only pass on our fear of failure to them.
In preparing the material, data from the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the hh.ru company, were used.