Why do global dreams give way to household plans for the near future? What will happen if you allow yourself to realize long-standing desires? And how not to destroy the already established life?
Invent a cure for a serious illness, become a movie star, design lunar settlements… In our youth, our dreams are big, but over the years they often become smaller. We say: “I dream of going to Thailand”, “I want an increase in salary”, but is it possible to call something that is at arm’s length a dream?
“A dream is an image of an ideal beautiful future,” says psychologist Yevgeny Osin. — When we build it, we get in touch with ourselves, with our values. An idea of what our life could be like emerges, and it motivates us to strive in that direction. But as we grow older, there is less time left, so the dream is replaced by more concrete plans for the coming months.
On the road to reality
So maybe it should be stated that bold dreams are the lot of youth, and it’s not for adults to soar in the clouds? Maybe dreaming is not a serious occupation? But making realistic plans and implementing them is another matter!
The experience of mistakes and failures says that you cannot get everything you want. That, chasing a dream, you can lose what you already have. It was not for nothing that proverbs such as “The best is the enemy of the good”, “Better a titmouse in the hands than a crane in the sky” arose.
We seem to be turning to common sense, but at the same time we sometimes do not notice how we limit ourselves and do not even dare to try to live the way we would like.
“Such reasoning is a defense mechanism by which we avoid internal conflict,” Evgeny Osin believes. — On the one hand, the dream contains something that is truly valuable for us. On the other hand, we understand that there are many obstacles, barriers and difficulties on the way to it. This contradiction generates internal tension, which can be resolved in different ways. One of them is to say that the dream is not important or unattainable for me. But then we in a sense give up ourselves, our own aspirations.”
Instead of setting ourselves goals and achieving them, we only dream about how we could do it.
You can often hear the opinion that this is a sober, mature view of the world. In fact, it is just a simplified picture of him. Real growing up, the psychologist emphasizes, assumes that we are able to keep in ourselves all the complexity and ambiguity of the real world.
But confronting him might take us to the other extreme. “For several years now, I have been addicted to webinars by well-known business coaches telling how great it is to stop being an employee and start your own business,” says 35-year-old Natalya, an employee of the ministry. — A tempting prospect, it seems, quite a bit more, and I will decide on this step. But I must admit that in all this time I did not even try to do it.
We can dream for years about how we will change our lives … and do nothing for this. Why?
“This is a well-known phenomenon, which is described in the works of motivation specialist Gabriel Oettingen and other researchers,” says Evgeny Osin. — It can be called defensive fantasizing: instead of setting goals for ourselves and achieving them, we only dream about how we could do it. This is also a mechanism for coping with the complexity of reality, in fact, a way to avoid meeting real life. But this is a fantasy, not a dream: it does not spur us to action.”
Living without dreams and living in dreams are both unfortunate because they do not allow us to realize ourselves. The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle.
“Dreaming, we, in fact, let go of ourselves, remove internal prohibitions, as if everything were possible for us,” explains Evgeny Osin. “And then on this basis we can already build concrete plans.”
The art of building your own life is to find a way to relate the dream to reality.
There is a motive!
We all tend to fall into the trap of habits, to associate ourselves with one single way of life, not realizing that every statement about us is only partially true.
In order to be realized, we often have to go through a denial of who we are in our own opinion. And this is risky.
“Among my patients was a brilliant young man, a banker who lived alternately in Singapore, London, and New York,” says psychotherapist Alain Delurme, author of Building Your Future. “He realized that he really wanted to live much more modestly, in France, away from the big cities. Can you imagine the journey he had to go through to admit this desire to himself, and the risks he took to fulfill it!”
Even if we don’t like our present life much, we know what it consists of. If we refuse it, then for some time we will not know anything. “It is precisely this period of transition to nowhere that frightens,” says Alain Delurme.
It is useful to imagine where we would like to be in 10-15 years. If we don’t change anything in our life, will we be happy with it?
In addition, all these new technologies that allow, for example, to establish relationships over the Internet, as well as the surrounding instability, strengthen the desire inherited from our ancestors to withdraw into our shell.
Sometimes we are hindered by the fact that we do not really understand what we want. Or perhaps the desire is false and the true desire is quite different. There are many techniques that help us figure out what is truly important to us.
“For example, it is useful to imagine who we would like to become in 10-15 years,” Evgeny Osin advises. — You can dream up: if I don’t change anything in my life, will I be satisfied with the way I live?
There is an interesting method of strengthening the will, which is offered by the Austrian psychologist Alfried Langle. Its essence is to reflect on all the various possibilities that we have, without limiting ourselves in any way, and try to weigh each of them: what is good in it, what is bad, how does it feel when I imagine that I have gone down this path. ?
And when we make a choice, it is worth periodically rechecking it, asking ourselves the question: why do I want to achieve this, where will it lead me?
Alain Delurme recalls that desires and will manifest themselves when we find ourselves in an emergency: “There is a good film on this subject -“ My Life Without Me ”with the advertising slogan“ What are you waiting for to make your dreams come true? This is the story of a 23-year-old mother of two who finds out she only has three months to live. The film shows her final weeks and the decisions she makes. I often ask my clients to imagine themselves in her place, it helps them to understand the priorities.
Right to Doubt
The biggest risk is not to make a mistake, but to freeze in inaction for fear of a choice. An adult has the right to imperfection, to doubt, to change his views, and finally, insurmountable obstacles may arise before him. All of this is neither a failure nor a defeat.
However, justified risk is by no means a hasty move to action. It is better to take risks not impulsively, but maturely. It’s not worth turning your whole life upside down, personal and professional, and even changing your place of residence, says Alain Delurme: “I would rather advise taking a“ local ”risk, for example, changing jobs, relying on family stability.”
In addition, fulfilling oneself does not necessarily mean fulfilling dreams literally, which can cause painful changes. Alain Delurme tells about his patient: «He had a prestigious economics degree, and he dreamed of becoming a lumberjack in Canada.» However, after an internship there, I realized that I really wanted to plant trees and that this could be done without leaving my homeland and without giving up my career.
“To realize oneself means not to give up the desire that was the basis of dreams,” the psychotherapist sums up. But the way we bring it to reality may be different from what we saw in our dreams.
And if we are stopped by doubt that we will be able to realize our plans? Evgeny Osin advises to start with small steps that do not require going beyond the current life.
At 70, you can equally well go to an Indian monastery to prepare for death — or fall in love for the first time.
“You can, for example, devote an hour a day to an activity that leads to the achievement of a goal. If we feel that these small efforts are fruitful, it strengthens the confidence that we can do it. Conventionally, if a person has never been involved in mountaineering and suddenly decides to climb Everest, he will not be able to go even half the way. But if he regularly climbs first to small heights, then higher and higher, then resources will appear to conquer Everest as well.”
Age of experiments
A teenager, by definition, faces an important choice. For him, the biggest risk is to make a mistake with the direction of the path, for example, choosing a profession under the influence of his parents, and not based on his own desire. And start moving away from yourself little by little.
At the age of 40 or 50, there is a risk not only to make a mistake, but also to destroy what is important. We have spent years to buy a house, to establish ourselves in the profession, and we need a very strong desire to put it all on the line. Perhaps more often some kind of catastrophe forces you to find the necessary determination in yourself.
“To avoid disappointment, it is important to remember that we will never fully realize ourselves. This is a life-long process,” emphasizes Alain Delurme.
A living person is one who manages his life to the last, strives for something. For example, at the age of 70, you can equally well go to an Indian monastery to prepare for death — or fall in love for the first time. Everyone chooses for himself.
We can recall the example of the philosopher Socrates. The student asked him: “Why, Socrates, do you need to learn to play the flute if you die?” “To play the flute until you die!”