My Dreams are Ruining My Life
It is clear to me that my dreams for the future have caused me to develop a scarcity mentality. I judge my current level of satisfaction based on the things I don’t have rather than the things I do have.
Warning – I’m Full of Shit
The universe is set up in such a way that I’m regularly forced to eat my own words. Those cherished notions I’ve developed about how things work just keep turning out to be false. One of the driving forces in my life has been the conviction that I should follow my dreams because this will lead me to increasing levels of happiness. I’ve even wasted time trying to convince other people that this is what they need to do the same, or they will be faced with a lifetime of mediocrity. Well, it turns out that I might as well have been trying to promote heroin because I now see that my dreams are getting in the way of my happiness.
Dreams and the Scarcity Mentality
It is clear to me that my dreams for the future have caused me to develop a scarcity mentality. I judge my current level of satisfaction based on the things I don’t have rather than the things I do have. It means that I’m consistently rejecting what is there right in front of my in favor of things that do not exist. My attitude means that I miss out on the satisfaction of getting things done because I’m so focused on the results I hope the action will achieve. The real kick-in-the-teeth is that many of my dreams do become reality, but I don’t even notice because I’m too focused on what is lacking from my life. The scarcity mentality means that the goal-posts are always well beyond my reach.
Dreams and Disillusionment
I once believed that dreaming big would give me to the motivation to work hard to achieve these ambitions. I’m no longer convinced that this is the way it works at all. I’m motivated to do things because there is satisfaction in doing them. I think this is easier to understand by using a real life example. I wrote my first book because I felt compelled to do so. It was a joyous process, and I didn’t expect it to lead to anything. After the book was accepted by a publisher though, I began having big dreams of where it would all lead. These fanciful notions intensified when I got to go on a book tour. I could taste the big time, but when my book failed to sell millions of copies, I felt like a failure.
My childhood dream was to walk into Eason’s bookstore in Dublin and see something I’d written on the shelves. I achieved this ambition in 2010, but I couldn’t appreciate it. Getting my book in shop no longer felt like such a big deal to me – I’d bigger fish to fry. I wanted crowds queuing up to purchase my masterpiece and to clap me on the back. The fact that this didn’t happen meant I felt like a complete loser.
I now work full-time as a writer, but I sometimes feel like my career is one huge let-down. I resent the fact that I’m not getting paid to write about the things I want to write about. I feel disappointed because my career appears to have stagnated, and I have to work my arse off just to stay afloat. I’m nowhere close to the riches and luxury my dreams tell me I deserve, and this means I feel cheated. It sometimes feels like I’m a victim of the Chinese curse – may your dreams come true.
Letting Go of My Dreams for the Future
Maybe my dreams did serve a useful function in the past, but they have now become a liability. There is just too much good stuff in my life right now for me to be focused on all the things I don’t have. I just need to let go of all of that stuff. I want a future full of surprises and not one where I’m always struggling to reach the next summit.
I love this whole post, Paul. And I love your extreme honesty. I particularly love this part:
“It is clear to me that my dreams for the future have caused me to develop a scarcity mentality. I judge my current level of satisfaction based on the things I don’t have rather than the things I do have. It means that I’m consistently rejecting what is there right in front of my in favor of things that do not exist. My attitude means that I miss out on the satisfaction of getting things done because I’m so focused on the results I hope the action will achieve. The real kick-in-the-teeth is that many of my dreams do become reality, but I don’t even notice because I’m too focused on what is lacking from my life. The scarcity mentality means that the goal-posts are always well beyond my reach.”
Yup. And I love your conclusion, that your life *is* full of good stuff *now* and it becomes a huge, defeating energy drain to constantly be focusing on what we *don’t* have rather than what we *do* have.
Life requires adaptability. I learn and forget and re-learn this all the time.
GREAT POST!!!!!
Thanks Mary, I felt a bit hesitant about posting this because I’ve been such a huge fan of chasing my dreams. I sometimes feel like a complete hypocrite because so much of what I believe turns out to be wrong.
Paul, this is an old favorite of mine. Perhaps you will find it meaningful also.
THERE’S A HOLE IN MY SIDEWALK
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
By Portia Nelson
Click on a chapter heading to learn more.
Chapter One
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost …. I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
Chapter Two
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit … but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
Chapter Five
I walk down another street.
Thanks Mary, this is a wonderful story.
I need a few slaps from life before I’m forced to change.
Beautiful post. I’ve been struggling with this for several years as well. Most of my childhood dreams have come true. Now, what next? My ambitions grew after each ‘success’ but some have proven to be unrealistic. I’m now working hard to really appreciate and work with what I do have, rather than what I don’t.
Thanks for this post, it was just the right thing to read today.
Thanks Elizabeth, it is relief to know that I’m not alone with feeling this way about dreams. When I wrote this, I worried that it might make me feel a bit ungrateful.
Yes – but few people can appreciate this. It will be viewed by most as defeatism, rejection of the world etc..
Also, I think it has something to do with our age 🙂
Hi Phra Pandit, I did worry that this post might reek of defeatism. I hope I’m not turning into a grumpy old man 🙂
Hi Paul. It seems to me that that feeling of negativity is something a lot of us struggle with. At least I do. You are not alone. We’re taught at an early age to “chase your dreams” and “you can achieve anything you want” when in fact that is certainly not the case.
I think a good portion of my depression is related to the feeling that my life and career is at a standstill whereas everyone around me is obtaining success. Because I’ve been hard wired since childhood to believe that achievement is everything, when I don’t obtain what I want or what I expect, I feel anger, sadness, and resentment. Even beyond my career, doing the mundane things in life (cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, etc) can make me feel like I’m a loser, that I’m not living the life of the absolute rock star that I thought I would be.
Yes, that is an enormous sense of entitlement speaking. I believe that a great deal of my sense of entitlement comes from my childhood. I was a spoiled child in my family, and in my adolescence and young adult years I managed to achieve a good level of success in school.
I totally agree with what you Mary Lewis, Pandit and Elizabeth have said, that the key is to focus on the stuff you do have, not what you don’t have. My problem is that it is rare for me to obtain that point of clarity and happiness when I embrace the positive aspects of my life. My first impulse is to always be negative, persistently so, and I end up making myself miserable.
But I do want you to know that reading and reflecting on your own writings often does provide me with that clarity of thought – at the risk of sounding melodramatic – like a beacon of light in the fog.
By the way Paul…off topic a little – Where are you in your writing a personal guide to life project? I was just thinking earlier what a great idea that is and was wondering how far you had gotten. Hope its going well for you!
This personal guide is basically a lifetime project. It keeps leading me in new and interesting directions which is kind of fun.
Great post and great comments. I always find myself focusing on what’s wrong with my situation which blocks out everything good in my life and I think it’s a fear thing. Fear is natural to our survival drive but it becomes habitual. Learning to relax and let go has helped me a lot. Relaxation is a parasympathetic nervous system response which switches off the fight/flight sympathetic nervous system so that it is impossible to be anxious when you are relaxed. This takes regular practice to get good at it. I don’t do it enough. But when I listen to relaxation hypnosis videos a few times a day for a few days I feel better and better and more joyful in the moment as it is. I like liberationinmind.com but YouTube has other people doing this stuff too, which I use to change things up a bit. Yoga practice also makes me feel more satisfied within myself so that I can feel great and function well and let go of outcomes more. I just am pretty undisciplined about practicing so I start at square one a lot! It’s discouraging but one thought that has encouraged me lately is the idea that I am worthy of feeling better. We are all worthy of joy. It’s what I believe God wants for all of us. And I think I am capable of what I need to do to feel good I just let false beliefs of unworthiness talk me out of it without even realizing I’m doing it. I let fear stop me. I immediately feel stronger when I realize that it’s only fear. Fear blocks the view to beauty and makes me think there is no beauty until I realize it and refuse it. We are all enough right now. Dream beacons give us something to shoot for as long as we realize that the process is where we grow and experience life. The outcome is sort of irrelevant because you can’t take it with you when you go. Hugs to all you fellow humans <3
Thanks Liz, you have made some excellent suggestions in your post. I also believe that the universe/God is offering us joy if we are willing to let go of our self-limiting beliefs. I use lots of names to describe the stickiness that keeps me trapped by damaging beliefs – fear is a good way to describe it.
Thanks Paul, I also wanted to mention that when I was first using hypnotherapy I tried too hard to relax, which was annoying and also I would get really aggravated when I was interrupted. Now I only do it when I’m reasonably sure I will not be interrupted and I don’t try at all. I just half listen and whatever I get I get and I know that the more often I listen to the hypnosis videos the deeper into relaxation I will go 🙂
Last year I was using those sort of audio tracks to help me lucid dream. For some reason I seem to have better luck when I’m not trying. I think you might be right that trying too hard just leads to aggravation.
If you think that you’re full of shit because you failed to appreciate what you have and feel sorry for what you don’t you’re not alone. There’s also other people out there who feels the same. What’s more important is that you’re able to realized it now. Thanks for sharing your story. 🙂
Yeah, when people are humble enough to express what we all go through but may hesitate to admit, it gives me hope for humanity and makes me feel like I’m in good company. It’s so rare it really is a treasure. Keep being real, Paul, whatever that means at any moment. It is a blessing 🙂
Thank you Liz. I’ve found that humility and honesty do lead to freedom, but it can be scary.
True and sometimes there are real consequences to speaking one’s truth but the alternative is to be either less genuine or more silent and those can have consequences as well, so I find that this is something I struggle with in all kinds of circumstances. I tend to speak my mind. It can really irritate people, and sometimes people think less of you for baring your weaknesses but this is what is real and human and being loved for unreal impressions isn’t being loved at all! Anywho… Dreams. I think they are ok if they help us grow but not if they keep us from appreciating life in general, because if you can’t be happy with one level, the next level won’t change that. Happiness is a skill not a place or time. If we have our basic needs for our body and mind and connection to ourselves and others we can learn to experience well being, I think. Right now is perfect, with all of its beautiful flaws.
I think it is good to speak the truth about ourselves, but not so good to speak our truth about what we think of other people. I’ve hurt many people in the past because I did not know that the second kind of truth can be a bit poisonous – it is also the truth is more likely to be wrong.
Yes – if we can be happy with what we have now, it will be easier to feel happy with something different. If we can’t be happy with what we have now…