It didn’t occur to me until a few years later that my dream to become a giant was not reasonably possible.
I became tremendously involved in martial arts as I began to enter elementary school. My days would consist of multiple trips to the library to scrounge through their shelves, looking for anything and everything regarding warfare and hand-to-hand combat. At the same time, I began watching a cartoon series titled Street Fighter II V. The main characters of this series embark on a journey around the world to become the best fighters in the world. My best friend and I promised ourselves at that instant that we would also follow Ryu and Ken’s lead and travel the world to become the best martial artists.
Yeah…if you know what I look like now, you know how that dream turned out.
As I grew older I didn’t necessarily lose sight of these types of dreams, I just wanted to add more to my list to do. By the time I was nine, I had a little composition book where I kept all of my invention ideas. I remember drawing up specs for a levitating skateboard and how we would have to redo our transportation infrastructure in order to accommodate for flying cars. I always thought that I would be able to do all this.
I had so many elaborate dreams when I was young. However, I lost sight of them as the years went by, sacrificing these childhood dreams so that I could be one of the “popular” kids. It’s funny how so much of what we want to do in the future gets put on the backburner because of pressures of the present. I liken this procrastination to sub-conscious apathy. I have been so distracted by the little things that I think I have to do now that the real assignment that would bring me utter satisfaction is completely neglected, and eventually lost.
How do I not live such a sedentary life? I just go through the motions. Just writing that sentence bothers me, for now I reflect on yesterday and realize that I didn’t do anything that actually helped me gain ground on something that I want to accomplish.
To try and remedy this daily crisis, I’ve adopted the use of a Dream Book. I write every dream I can think of into this book to make sure that I have them recorded and never lose them. I’ve seen that by writing one dream, I think of a few more that stem for that dream. Hopefully this will keep me thinking big so that I don’t become distracted for a period of many years once again. I picked up this idea after a friend of mine told me to read the book The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. It’s an interesting story, especially if you are business-inclined. Of course writing your dreams down is never enough.
Challenge: Out of the Dream Book, pick a dream to concentrate on for a week. Spend thirty minutes each day of that week to work to accomplish that goal.
Excuse my rant on this post. My internal frustration and scattered memories have translated to constipated writing.
