Dreaming Your Way to Achieving Your Dream

-April 13, 2022-

I took this photo of Robin Williams imprints on Hollywood at the TCL Chinese Theatre while visiting Los Angeles this past week.  Robin Williams starred in two of my three most favorite films, “Dead Poets Society” and “Good Will Hunting.” While the movie, “Dances with Wolves,” was the best movie ever as far as I am concerned, all three of these films had a tremendous influence on me and why I continue to write to this day. 

I recognize here that Williams’s real life ended in tragedy and that the movie Dead Poets Society had a character that suffered the same fate. That the main character in Good Will Hunting suffered unimaginable abuses and the ultimate tragedy committed upon the Native Americans at the hands of Whites as depicted in the Dances with Wolves movie, all these things were horrific.  That was never the message though, not for any of these movies, and not for Williams’s life.  The takeaway for me from all these works of art is best left to the words of Thoreau, which are also a driving force of inspiration for me:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.  I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.  I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms and if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”  – By Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Below was my first draft from February 13, 2022, that inspired me to write, “To Leave a Legacy in My Wake.”  The “Carpe Diem” message from seeing the Williams imprints this past week has brought me back to thinking about my first draft here:

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If you have a dream that hosts the slightest hint of plausibility, achieving that dream is closer than you think.  Ask yourself what is it that you really want out of your time here on planet Earth?  What is it you want to achieve?  Do you have a fear of swimming but want to learn how to do it?  Is achieving that next promotion at work or changing your career path altogether?  Whatever it is for you, you alone know what that thing is, dig deep into your mind, find that one dream.  That one dream out of all your greatest dreams that lurks in the corner of your mind collecting dust.  Yes, that one.  That one dream that you kept hidden all these years, even from yourself on most days because it is just a dream right, or is it?

Reality for us dolphins.  A dolphin is not going to train to become a famous snowboarder like Shaun White, the 35-year-old American Olympian, who just finished his last professional run yesterday at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, China.  No, that is not based in some type of reality for a dolphin.  Do you believe that it is possible, if mammals were allowed to compete, that a dolphin could be trained for the one hundred meter in swimming?  Those are the dreams I am talking about; those are dreams worth pursuing, the ones in your own lane.

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Not everything in life is organic, meaning not everyone is seamlessly born into a particular path nor set on one at such an early age like White that it appears to us observers to be natural for that person.  Often, even from an early age, achieving a dream becomes a lot of dedication, arduous work, training, training and then some training.  I am sure that White, the greatest and most accomplished snowboarder and skateboarder to have lived thus far, was extremely disappointed in himself that he did not take gold home yesterday after falling on his last halfpipe run. 

He hinted that he had a vision for himself on how his last run would play out in an interview with Craig Melvin, NBC News Today Show, prior to competing in Beijing though he did not outright share it with us.  After already having competed in five Olympics and taking the gold three times, no doubt he wanted to end on the podium with a gold medal hanging on his neck. 

He talked in the interview about the last gold metal he achieved in the 2018 PyeongChang, South Korea Olympics and how that was already a moment that he was so proud of, the pinnacle of his success.  He says he looks at this fifth Olympic competition as his “bonus” round.  Reading the tea leaves, he is telling us that he wants gold but is not going to say it aloud because he also knows that is a stretch for him at his age to want such a dream.  He is not settling, not giving up, he is only addressing his reality while also, one last time, doing that one thing he loves to do at the highest level he can possibly do it at and this is what I am talking about when I talk about pursuing your dreams with an understanding of what is plausible.

He describes in the interview with Melvin how his whole life he was looked up to as “superhuman.”  He had been pursuing his dream since age 15, and at 35 now realizing that he is “human.”  He acknowledges that admitting that to himself and others is ridiculously hard.  When he talks of these things now, he is realizing the reality of his dream.  That he can still compete in his sport but that his potential for greatness in his dreams is now behind him though that does not mean he has to stop living a life focused on his dream.  It will now require him to take different paths while still in the boarding sports lane and he says he is at peace with that.

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It is important for any of us wishing to pursue your own dreams to not focus so much on the end state but on the actions that it will require you to take to get there.  Outcomes are out of your hands and to really understand them you must separate what the outcome may look to you yourself and what the outcome may look like to others.  Oftentimes, they are not mutually exclusive, they are vastly different.  

There are those among us who will set their fears aside, those among us who must take the long way around and will never be as great as the greatest, when they fully realize their dream, which is okay.  They are, living their dream by the shear act of pursuing it, even though it might look quite different than what they had originally imagined.  They have seized the day; they have achieved their dream; they are the inspiration to us all.