Refuse To Grow Old Without Your Dreams!

Where are your dreams hiding? Or, do you even know where to go to look for them any more?

Are they under the bed, having tea and crumpets with your local dust bunnies?

Then again, have you been stuffing them – very unceremoniously, I might add – into that corner closet where you stuff everything else you don’t care to deal with right now, but figure you’ll get back to eventually? (When is eventually, by the way?)

They could all be breeding like flies in there, you know. I’d check up on them every so often if I were you.

Except you put them there because you don’t want to deal with them, right?

Okay, forget about the checking up. Just watch your back. Even good dreams can go bad when they’re stuck in the dark all the time.

And that’s why I’m talking to you now, so listen up.

Except before you getting even more confused than you might already be, let me set the record straight: I am not talking here about the dreams that show up in the middle of the night to keep your mind occupied when you’re sound asleep and snuggled down deep in REM-land.

And I’m not suggesting you might want to start taking more naps so you can sneak up on the antics of those same middle-of-the-night dreams that don’t expect to see you during the day. Just don’t do it. They get testy. And testy dreams are not at all pleasant.

Where Are Your Earliest Dreams?

I’m talking about the dreams that really matter to you. You know the ones.

I’m talking about the dreams you started building long ago – when you were young. You remember . . the dreams that were going to lead you to love, adventure, amazing places with equally amazing people.

Okay, so some from your earliest years aren’t exactly applicable now – at least not in their raw form. That’s alright.

You still have them. That means they still matter to you in some way or other.

And as long as you still have them, you can work with them. You can repurpose them.

My Childhood Dreams:

You know, when I was about 4 or 5 years old, I dreamed of heading out to California to live with “Truth of Consequences” TV show host Bob Barker, and his horn-honking chimp. I didn’t care about Bob Barker. I didn’t care about the show. I just dreamed about growing up with a chimp for a friend. How cool could THAT be?!

In any case, I packed up a small bag and toddled on down to my neighbor’s house to ask for a ride to the airport. They, of course – being much older and wiser – saw through my brilliant plan and called my parents.

So much for realizing big dreams in our early years.

The thing is, though: I didn’t lose the dream. (Obviously) I put it under the bed. And that’s where it’s been waiting for me ever since.

And, as you can see, I visit it every so often to make sure it’s alive, well, and still happy under there.

Who’s to say what it holds for me now? Who’s to say what new directions I might choose to take it, now that I have so many more inner resources and tools to apply to it?

Who’s to say, indeed!

(Just for the record, I also dreamed a little after that time of going off to live with Albert Schweitzer in Africa. Once again, it was about the monkeys. Don’t ask. I don’t know where in my heritage monkeys came into the picture, but there was a definite connection somewhere.)

Don’t Grow Old Without ALL Your Dreams!

And what of my later dreams? There have been plenty through the years.

Some I’ve followed to their ends – not always good ends, but ends.

Some I set aside – under the bed – for later.

Some will stay with me in their raw, unrealized, form.

Others will reach out for me when the time is right . .  when I know how and where to give them life.

Dreams are magic. We mustn’t grow old without them!

I know some people believe that dreams are the stuff of childhood. They think adult dreamers are misfits, losers, lost souls.

They fear more harm can come from trying on our dreams and learning that some aren’t what we think them to be, than leaving all of them under the bed.

I believe such individuals couldn’t be more wrong.

We need dreamers. We need to be dreamers. And we need to give life to every dream we possibly can – for our own sakes.

Deciding to live forever alone in one’s dreamland is not particularly bright nor healthy. It’s also rather selfish.

But dreams give us options we would never have known existed in pure reality-based thinking.

In The End, We Are ALL Dreamers

Whatever our age or our ilk, dreams stretch our imagination. They help us laugh at our limits and reach across the boundaries of what we know in our limited experience with the world to be.

And the older we get, the more our dreams show us of pathways to places in ourselves we’ve yet to travel . .  and experiences we’ve yet to explore.

Who among us can believe that the greatest of discoveries came from reality thinking? NO! Each and every one sprang first from dreaming!

And in a world and time where growing old is so often seen as shutting down, I see dreaming as the magic potion for capturing eternal youth.

There is no age limit to dreams. And there is no age limit to what can be created of and through dreams – if one has the opportunity to give their dreams life.

We all are dreamers, whether we admit to it or not.

And most of us will one day grow old.

I fully intend to give each and every one of my dreams a chance to breathe the air and feel the sun. (Okay, so some dust bunnies may get lonely. Then again, new dreams are always coming along.)

What about you?

What dreams are tugging on your heart to spend more time with them -  and their friends – expanding your picture of the world?

How can you heal some little corner of your world with the help of your dreams?

Play with the opportunities my friend. Share your dreamings and what they’re telling you to do and to become in the years ahead.

Promise yourself that you will let your dreams support your growing older just as you support their life.

Refuse to grow old without your dreams!

It’s all good stuff.

Keep growing my friend,

Gail

Tagged as: Albert Schweitzer, Bob Barker, dreamers, dreaming, dreams, Old, Truth of Consequences