We are just a bunch of busy bodies, aren’t we?

We seem to like having our lives flooded in work and submerged in tireless and incessant activity. Furthermore, we seem to like working toward something.

Having fixed goals and moving through the world with intention is tremendously valuable to living an existentially profitable and happy life, but what I am about to propose is a bit of a different outlook than what usually we tend to see.

It’s great to have goals—but goals change, people change, and times change. I have found it profoundly useful and meaningful to think a bit larger, in terms of how it is I am to live out my dreams, rather than just achieve my particular goals in life.

Now, what does this mean exactly? What am I truly regarding when I speak of our “dreams”?

I am speaking of our deepest and most heartfelt passions and desires. Our most fundamental impulses and proclivities. That which we crave most profoundly. That which we want most acutely and intensely.

The dream is our ethos—that which fuels us every step of the way, whether we know it or not. It encompasses the predominant energy field of our subconscious. The dream is our lifeblood, the very marrow of our bones, the dynamic core of our being. It is the essential force behind the movement of our consciousness.

Okay, we get the picture.

The dream encapsulates the very depths of our soul. It is not just a particular career choice, an exercise routine, or a book list. Those things are fine, and maybe certain goals and resolutions can be valuable in living out the dream, but they do not comprise or contain the dream.

The dream is transcendent of ambition. Ambition is just the means, the vehicle, the mechanism necessary in manifesting our dreams—but let’s not confuse the instrument for that which uses the instrument.

I’m sure this all sounds quite vague and ethereal, so let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.

Being dream oriented is superior to being goal oriented, because it serves our deeper nature, rather than our superficial appetites.

I’ve always known that I wanted to help people—that I’ve wanted to connect with people in the most rooted way possible—though it was never clear what this meant, or how I was to go about enacting this. It goes back to my childhood even, wherein I recall my best moments being those of giving and caring for others.

As we get older, we learn more about how we are going to make the dream into a reality, which is to say how we are going to express our deepest passions and desires most fully, but only if we remain with the dream and aren’t led astray by the various mechanisms of culture.

We cultivate ourselves, and through this process of cultivation, we come to understand the specifics of how we are to live out our most fundamental drives—or at least that’s the ideal scenario.

For me, it has manifested a number of ways—for instance, writing acts as an expression of my dream of helping other people and facilitating healing and growth, as does speaking, as well as holding space for others in a therapeutic manner.

So, I’ve understood what it is that I most deeply seek, to some degree, and I have gone through the process of uncovering the modalities that help me achieve that.

The specific goals surely matter, but only in the context of our dreams. When we become detached from our dreams, the goals become entirely irrelevant, like a dog chasing cars.

There is no meaning in our lives when we are removed from our dreams—our most intrinsic motivations and impulses—and I say that wholeheartedly. Living without our dreams is really a tragedy, for when we forgo our dreams, we are forced to live out our nightmares.

So, if we are to live out our dreams, it might be useful to first uncover what they are. I’ve gone about this through observing my inner self very closely, paying careful attention to the movements of my mind and heart.

Meditation has been my chosen modality in this regard, wherein I sit very still and focus on my breath so as to truly feel myself in my body. Once I am inhabiting my body most fully, I find myself quite capable of observing what is happening within myself. I suppose it is kind of a form of self-therapy, where I can look at myself with total objectivity and go into the places that perhaps I wouldn’t dwell in otherwise.

Another thing to bear in mind is that it is also important to look at the darker elements of who we are—our deepest fears and apprehensions—and if we do so closely enough, then we tend to unveil an emanation of light beneath the shadows.

This has been my experience. Insofar as in examining my fears and strife, it became clear to me that they arose from being detached from my dreams. In failing to live out my deepest passions and longings, much pain and turmoil was created, and this recognition was profoundly valuable in uncovering my greatest strengths.

In looking within ourselves with all of the vibrant light of our consciousness, we then discover our deepest dreams—our own personal mythology so to speak—and then we can put the work in to live them out most wholly.

It’s a balance ultimately, between the inner and the outer, the active and the passive, the hard and the soft—and the closer we are to eliciting this balance, then the better off we will be.

It is both of matter of going within ourselves and uncovering our most fundamental motivations as well as manifesting those motivations outwardly through conscious effort and tireless practice.

If we can walk that fine line between the Yin and the Yang, sustain that quintessential balance between our inner and outer worlds, then we become dream oriented, and our lives come to flow with beautiful and powerful finesse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGUYQ_scTzc

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Author: Samuel Kronen
Image: Flickr/denise carbonell
Editor: Yoli Ramazzina