Are you living your dream? Or are you focused on surviving?

As always: This is not THE truth, it is just something to think about that I hope makes a difference.

Now, let’s start with a definition!

Dream

1.) a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. “I had a recurrent dream about falling from great heights”

2.) a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal. “I fulfilled a childhood dream when I became champion”

Let’s walk you through my progression through life

· From ages 1 to about 7, I dreamed of being a policeman because I could be help and save people and make their lives safer and better.

· From ages 8 through Middle School I fell in love with Star Trek, so I was looking for how I could get into NASA so I could travel the stars and date sexy green alien women

· Through High School: NFL Baby! Because I wanted to have thousands of people cheering on my every move and…maybe date a certain movie actress

· In College, at one point wanted to be a jet Pilot (Well, when you spend five years near Dover AFB, that does have an impact), because that seemed like a cool job that paid a lot of money and was an cool compromise to star travel.

Then a funny thing happened: Life

· Cop dream killed because someone told me that cops killed black people and was a dangerous job, so no longer wanted to be a cop

· Star travel dreams killed because someone told that Star travel would not happen in our lifetime and that the green alien women was a regular looking lady in make up

· NFL Dreams killed because UMICH did not recruit me, so that’s them telling me I was not good enough, but I got to play college football and then found out that at the next level, I was not one of the biggest and strongest guy on the field (well, at least as a freshman I wasn’t)

· Airline Pilot dream killed: Because someone told me that at 6ft 5 inches tall, I was over three inches too tall to fit in the cockpit

What’s the common theme: “Someone told me”

What I was told was done with great intentions and with lots of love, but essentially, it meant that I needed to grow up and face reality and put on the “big boy pants”.

That meant I needed to stop dreaming and start focusing:

(BTW: A lot of those motivational speeches you hear and replay, retweet and repost 100 times on YouTube are really about becoming better at surviving when you think of it. Same old same old speeches “Work Harder, Outhustle your competition…necessary and important stuff for sure and when you do them, life seems to work and you will become a focused and amazingly successful survivor)

So when I got motivated, my focus became:

· Find a job that will pay me a good living and pay the bills

· Find and marry a good woman with great values

· Get a decent position and put myself in position to retire well

· Have children and raise them into amazing people

I achieved everything on my “focus” list, but nothing on my “dream” list

As I become more entrenched in life I determined and decided that I needed to wake up and face reality. It became clear to me that reality has no place for my “cherished aspirations, ambitions, or ideals.”

“Facing reality” means that I need to do what we need to do in order to survive.

Which in turn is the cosmic joke: No one survives life!

So struggling to survive this deal is both sad and funny: I spent a good portion of my life focusing on something that I will ultimately fail to achieve: Survival!

That means that I gave up on some dreams just to survive. That does not seem like a good deal to me.

Let me be clear:

· Is this a conversation about being unfocused and chasing whims?: No!

· Is this a conversation saying that focusing on what is necessary to live is a bad thing?: Not at all!

What I am saying is that we do very well with the stuff on our focus list, I am inviting everyone to put everything on your focus list: What you need to do on a day to day basis and also those things that make waking up and “surviving” worth getting out of bed for.

So: Take actions on what you want to live for!

· Write that book/blog (even if no one reads it, at least you have had your say)

· Buy the new car/house you want

· Pursue the civic endeavor you want to make a difference in

· Take that dream vacation on your bucket list

Here is the question to take away from everything I said (I am exploring the same question myself): What if you started focusing on achieving your dreams as much as you do to survive?

Life is not a hustle. No one builds monuments to people who are the best survivors, they build monuments to people who dreamed big and got things done.

They build monuments to people whose work changes other people’s lives and society as a whole.

Oh and for me that means I have discovered that the dream I had when I was ages one through seven are just as inspiring to me now as they were then, and I do not have to become a police officer to help and save people and make their lives safer and better.

There is also no real “competition” in life you need to kill and eat. The game is not to beat the competition, but to be and do better that you did before!

There is no competition because none of us, when you think of it, are really playing the same game!

Hope this makes a difference for you!