Posts tagged: dreams

Cost of Dreams

I haven’t been thinking too much about my trip lately because I’ve just been enjoying family and the Christmas season. I’m not sure why, but even though I don’t have places to sleep all planned out for next week, I’m really not worried. I have this feeling like things will just all work out. It’s kind of weird. I keep thinking I’m going to feel pressured to find places to stay and what not, but so far, I haven’t. Hopefully things works out as optimistically as I think they will.

The main reason for me wanting to write tonight is because I just watched the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”. It’s kind of a tradition in my family to watch either that or The Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve. Well, tonight as we watched “It’s A Wonderful Life”, I was really touched. So much so that I actually cried. I tried to hide it, but, I definitely cried. And, for me, that doesn’t really happen too much. If I would have watched the movie alone in my room, I would have been bawling.

I think the reason I was so touched is because I feel like I can relate a lot with the main character – George Bailey. He’s a very ambitious young man that wants to get out and change the world. He wants to do important things and travel and see what the world has to offer. He has his life all planned out exactly how he thinks it will be. However, even though he has all these dreams of the life he wants to have, he gives them up for others.

I have a lot of the same desires as him and I’ve been thinking a lot lately, as I’ve been getting ready for my trip, how we shouldn’t give up on what we want out of life. We should never just settle for a life that is sufficient to get us by. I don’t want to live a life where I have regrets or where I struggle to get out of bed in the morning. I don’t want to get a job just to “pay the bills” yet doesn’t challenge and engage me. I don’t want to coast through life having never taken the risks to go after my dreams.

However, this movie has shown me the courage that it takes to give up what you want for others. I would really struggle with that, and I think that’s why I was so touched by the story. He sacrificed his life and dreams to help others live better lives.

Now, I also have greater appreciation for others who do jobs, “just to get by”. I always kind of looked down on people like that because I was disappointed that they weren’t pursuing their dreams. However, often, they are sacrificing what they want for somebody else. We hear of a father who gets married much earlier in life than planned. Rather than continuing on the career path he wants, he drops out of school in order to get a job to provide for his family. He doesn’t love his job, but he is doing it because he wants to take care of those he loves more than he wants to take care of himself. That takes great courage and great character.

I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who had great desires for an education and career, and they sacrificed those things to be a mother to their children. Maybe there are those who have to give up their life-long dreams because it isn’t a practical path to take to raise a family. I shouldn’t look down on these people, because, in reality, they have much more courage than me. They are giving up what they want in order to help others. I’m not sure why I never really saw that before now. I’ve seen this movie plenty of times, but tonight, it taught me a great lesson. Just one more thing that is showing me how I can learn from everyone.

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categories Thoughts on Life | Aaron Anderson | datetime December 24, 2009 11:33 pm | comments Comments (2)

Living the Dream?

While I was at work today, I overheard my boss use the expression, “living the dream”. This is an expression that I hear a lot, and I’m slightly confused at to what it’s supposed to mean. Most of the time, people say it in a somewhat sarcastic or facetious way. When somebody says it in that manner, it seems to me that they are saying that their life is less than interesting.

For example, you see a friend you haven’ t seen in a while, and they ask you what you have been doing. A common response in this scenario can be that you’re “just living the dream”. This response seems to be said when someone feels they don’t have anything too noteworthy to report. Now, I may be reading into this statement wrong, but that seems to be the underlying meaning of the statement. You know, they aren’t doing anything that exciting, just going to school, going to work, dating, blah, blah, blah.

It’s funny because I’ve heard this statement in conjunction with the lifestyle of a college grad that still lives in Provo. As I’ve tried to explain to people what I’ve been doing, my friends have sometimes pointed out that I’m just “living the dream”. Basically implying that I’m doing nothing with my life by still living in Provo.

So, why is “living the dream” not a good thing? Don’t all of us hope that we’ll go after and achieve our dreams? I think that most of us do. However, “the dream” is often associated with societal norms and expectations that we’ve been raised with all of our lives. So yes, “living the dream” should be a negative statement, because if we’re living “THE dream”, we’re not living our own.

My dream is not to graduate from college and go work for a big corporation in New York, Boston, or D.C. My dream is not to find a “career”, and work for somebody else for my entire life. My dream is not to go to medical school, law school, dental school, or get my MBA. My dream does not align with a lot of the normal, predictable, and expected post-graduation plans of college grads. So, when I say I’m “living the dream”, I’m doing just that. I’m not doing what I want to do, rather, I’m doing what I’ve been taught I should want to do.

That’s really why I’m going on this trip. Too many people settle for “living the dream”, because it just seems too risky or scary to go after what they really want. Even then, often times people have a hard time deciphering between what they really want and what they’ve been taught they should want. I kept quitting jobs without having any other plan, because I never wanted to just get comfortable and settle for life. I hear people all the time say that they don’t love their job, “but it pays the bills”. That, to me, is living the dream.

So, are you living the dream?

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categories Thoughts on Life | Aaron Anderson | datetime December 3, 2009 8:57 pm | comments Comments (8)

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