Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Blog

I have a dream.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

That's what I have, mostly. Dreams.

This weekend I got to talking with friends and the comment was made that one friend felt he had lots of goals, but no dreams.That made me stop and think. For the first time, something became clear to me. I joked that I have no goals, only dreams (which is true and what I'm going to talk about), but I really wasn't joking.

Later that same day, a woman was pressing me with questions about flying lessons, seemingly insistent on knowing what I was going to "do" with it once I got a private pilot's license. It seemed to me that it bothered her that I didn't have an planned end result, and that my answer of "I don't know. We'll see. I just want to do this now" was not acceptable.

What a huge difference is the end result of a person who is goal-oriented versus one who is dream-oriented.

I make to-do lists. I have lists of things to change and accomplish which are, in a sense, small goals. I do not, however, have Goals. Capital "G" goals. I have Dreams, though, and I seem to focus on that.

Dreams are messy. Dreams are the things you're working towards that require years of nebulous efforts that seem unconnected and makes little sense to people around you. Dreams are the things that have no answer to the question of "what are you doing?" or "what do you hope to do with this?" Questions like those the dreamer absolutely dreads. Dreams are fragile, and a person has to be careful who she shares them with lest it end up being a pearls-before-swine moment in which the dream seems silly and more valuable in the discard pile than in pursuance. Dreams are what keep life from being monotonous, are what really stretch our courage and faith and daring.

Goals make sense. They are calculable. They are often orderly, and follow in a logic step process. People understand goals, generally, and know what to do with them when you describe them. Goals have an answer to the "what are you doing?" or "what do you hope to do with this?" questions. They have a foundation and an order and a progression. They can be checked off a list, and you know when you've arrived at a goal and when to move on to the next. Goals are what keeps a life from becoming an excuse-ridden slide into lethargic non-action.

I have lots of dreams, but so few goals. It's a poor combination for a person who is supposedly running her own business. It explains my lack of direction or way of getting to the dreams. Goals are kind of like the engine that runs the car that gets you to your dreams. It explains the appearance, maybe, of adult underachieverhood. On the other hand, I've never felt hemmed in, trapped, regretful of the things I've not tried or attempted...dreamers tend to have a different set of problems than the average goal-oriented person. Life is always a kind of exciting "what next?" existence, never plodding. I've never felt owned or that I've settled for something less. Everything feels like a creative, wide-open opportunity. An adventure.

Goals and dreams. It's important to have both. If you lack one or the other, your life is either too abstract and you wallow in confusion and non-direction, or you are over-structured and hemmed in and controlled only by the possible. One has a planned outcome, and the other leaves the door free and wide open for possibility.

We need both the chase of the impossible, and the structure and method that helps us get there.

Labels: essay, friends

Like this post? Subscribe to the feed. Help support this site. Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | Newsvine

Links to this post:

<$BlogBacklinkTitle$>: <$BlogBacklinkSnippet$>
posted by <$BlogBacklinkAuthor$> @ <$BlogBacklinkDateTime$>

Create a Link

2 Comments:

Julie --

I'm not quite sure...do you feel that you are lacking in some sense because you don't have goals (with a capital "G")?

It would seem to me that you have struck a balance that works well for you. Perhaps your small goals (the to-do lists) complement, at the "just right" level, your dreams. There is nothing wrong with the experiences that are for the sake of the experience.

I won't insult you by pretending that I know how your sense of Goals versus Dreams affects your perceptions of what you feel you wish to accomplish. All I am saying is that this world needs more dreamers.

As for those individuals who cannot seem to understand why some things just don't need an answer to the question of "what are you doing?" or "what do you hope to do with this?", well, more's the pity for them.

Dreams are more than important or valuable. They are essential. Those individuals who cannot see this or who will denigrate a person for dreaming are not worth troubling over.

Keep on dreaming. Our world will be better for it.

Rey

By Rey, at 2/9/08 14:04