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Reflections March 2015

Phase Three

Your Dreams While Awake

By Arnold Bornstein

If a dream or goal has remained with us over the years, why not consider giving it another shot? It doesn't have to involve greatness, but perhaps just a common thing that you have wanted to try to do and it has lingered in your thoughts.

You remember "dreams" from your youth ("goals" is the more common word) –  perhaps playing for the New York Yankees, or a Hollywood career, or becoming a millionaire. As you grow, so does reality.

Nevertheless, your dreams while you are awake (not the sleeping ones) are truly goals, and as the years go by, it becomes clearer as to what you may or may not be able to achieve. Some goals, like the pursuit of happiness, seem to remain in your inner being throughout life. Other dreams may imply something that you doubt you could achieve, but you surely would like it to happen.

In any event, in your later years it may be a good idea to revisit some of your dreams, and with the gift of time that you may have lacked in the past, you may want to try to pursue some of those dreams again.

Instead of primarily seeking things to do, why not try to rekindle some of your old dreams? You still may not reach your destination, but the journey may be enjoyable.

Look what happened to Leonardo da Vinci. You remember him. He used to put paint on canvases. I read that in the year 1505, Mr. Gheradini refused to pay for the portrait that da Vinci had done of his wife. It was to be a gift for his wife, Mona Lisa Gheradini, but Mr. Gheradini thought the smile looked fake. I guess Lenny da Vinci may have felt he was stuck with that unwanted painting. But that obviously didn't stop him from continuing the pursuit of his dreams.

Of course, we shouldn't confuse our goals with those of geniuses like Leonardo, but there is a message there for all of us. If a dream or goal has remained with us over the years, why not consider giving it another shot? It doesn't have to involve greatness, but perhaps just a common thing that you have wanted to try to do and it has lingered in your thoughts.

Successful aging, which is important at any age, certainly is a goal. Obviously, there are factors in aging that you have no control over, but what about the things that you could control? There are deadly diseases and fatal accidents. However, why shouldn't we, at any age, always attempt to do the best we can in trying to ensure our future good health?

As you know, as you get older, you may more frequently reflect upon the "what ifs" – the
decisions large and small that were made in your life, and what if you had decided the other way?

Of course, with 20-20 hindsight it's much easier to look back and determine afterwards whether you made the right or wrong decision.

Nevertheless, in any pending decision in your current life, whether it be financially or career or pleasure oriented, or whatever, you may not want to leave out your dream or goal.

In any case, a burden that we all seem to face is the balancing of satisfaction and sacrifice in our lives. One side is riddled with cliches: No pain, no gain. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Survival of the fittest. The law of the jungle. You can't win if you're not in....

Another side can also be riddled with cliches: Take time to smell the roses. Enjoy yourself; it's later than you think. All work and no play....

The bottom line for many of us in the pursuit of satisfaction is the degree to which we choose to make or not make particular sacrifices, real or imagined, in the pursuit of that satisfaction. There are also questions about what we mean by satisfaction and by sacrifice. We evidently have to provide the answer for ourselves, if we can.

At any rate, here is one more cliche: To make a long story short – I may have made a short story long – so I'll leave it to what Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."

And here's wishing that at least some of your dreams while awake do come true!

 

I can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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