the dreaming & the doing

Here’s the thing – you can dream all day long, but until you do something - that dreaming just sits on journal pages or in your pretty little head or on that pinterest board you spent hours on. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge advocate for dreaming. Dreaming is the very thing I believe helps us discover who we are. It’s the place where we can take risks, because we can dream of dying our hair pink without actually doing it. It’s like dress up for your life, and you never grow up and enter middle school and end up not fitting in to your favorite pink, frilly, princess dress. Dreaming is a place where fear is not allowed and being crazy is an asset. So with that, I say DREAM-dream big and wide and crazy, and WRITE IT DOWN. Nothing makes you feel like a real live crazy person than writing down your dreams. Because yes, when you write down “own a unicorn” you will realize how crazy you are. But the first step is admitting it, right?

So there ya go, dreaming. Now that I’ve up-ed my word count trying to convince you of how important and lovely I think dreaming is – let me say this – dreaming needs doing. While yes, writing down your dreams is doing something; I believe it’s only the first step. And yes I do also realize that I can’t do much more than just write down that I want to own a unicorn. (Other than buying myself a horse and strapping a horn on its head – ha solved that one!)

Really though, this is where we (yes - you, me and every other lovely human person) get stuck. We can dream all day, we can make lists; we can talk in pretty descriptions, and spend endless hours on pinterest. Trust me, I know; I’m really good at pinterest. But there has to be a step forward.

For some, that first step is sharing. It’s being bold and sitting with a friend and saying “this is my dream”. And oh my dear, that is huge – because these dreams we hold in us are fragile and sharing them is scary business. Once we’ve shared (and trust me I realize this isn’t the easiest step) we have to allow ourselves to believe it is possible. Now I’m not saying this is going to work for a seventy year old who dreams of having five kids by the age of seventy-seven. I mean there was Sarah..but you know what I mean. There is this thing called “reality” and it’s a real bugger because darn it, I’ve tried jumping off the couch with my bed sheet cape so many times and I still can’t fly.

I’m getting off track here – the point is whether your dream is to fly, have kids, open a business, travel to Ireland, grow a beard – you have to believe that you can and move forward from that place. Grab your bed sheet, tie it up, and perch on the edge of that couch cushion. And then….JUMP!

And yes, you will hit the ground. But remember the rush? That singular moment as you were parallel (not crashing in to) the ground and you felt so light and free. That’s the doing. That’s the rush that comes with jumping in to the unknown of your dreams. And yes, there will be times that you fall. Really though, we all need failure otherwise we would all be superheroes that didn’t need saving. (And hon, we don’t need anymore spandex suits in the world – leave that to Cirque de Soleil) Embrace the failure, just like your face just embraced the carpet you fell in to. Failure doesn’t mean everything is wrong. I’m tired of failure being a negative word. Someone needs to paint a pretty canvas with the word “failure” in calligraphy – because dang it failure teaches you and shapes you.

So let’s give failure a bear hug, let’s dream of unicorns and business and babies and travel, and then – let’s jump. Without fear of the fall, the carpet burn, the fact that we may need help up after. (At least you didn’t have to wear spandex.)