Your Dreams Are Valid.

Hi blog-fam! I just want to say thank you for this past week. Thank you for reading as usual, the likes, sharing with your community, your comments here and on our Instagram page, and so on. You guys are the best and I’m so blessed to have you in my corner.

I know you’ve seen the different posts about Kamala Harris shattering the ceiling to become the first female Vice President of the United States of America.  For those of you who have had women in notable offices in your home countries; please bear with us as this is a big deal particularly for women of colour. While this made the news, it signified a new sense of possibility for me. It signified hope. I like how the Bible describes it in Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life”. In simple terms, when hope drags on and on, it can be depressing but when at last your dreams come true, life’s sweetness will satisfy your soul (TPT, paraphrased). Now if that isn’t the truth, I don’t know what else would qualify.

Let’s talk about hope for a bit. I reckon that over the course of our lives; we’ve all hoped, believed or expected something to happen, that didn’t; meaning, you may have at one point or the other experienced disappointment to some degree. If you have; then this post is for you. Over the course of my adult life, I think at age 21, I realized I didn’t take disappointment very well. In fact, my friend/ housemate at the time and I coined our own quote which said, “blessed is she that expects nothing; for she shall never be disappointed”. Funny, I know, but true. I primed myself to not expect anything “great” from most people; so if you did something exceptional, I would be grateful and if you didn’t; then all good and fine, I just moved on. In retrospect, I can say that this was my self-defense mechanism to forestall disappointment.

Over time, I realized that I subconsciously did this even with vital relationships and aspects of my life, so I didn’t necessarily expect anything great. The flip side however was that I almost eroded my sense of wonder and drive in the process because I had nothing to look forward to. Trying to make myself believe this was clearly counter-productive; so, even when I claimed that I wasn’t expectant; I was, and the consistent disappointment was carving a gully in my soul. Where am I going with this?

Often, after disappointments have taken several blows at us; we give in to the pain, sadness, displeasure and sometimes hopelessness, which in turn steals our wide-eyed wonder. We allow it to erode our ability to dream, to believe and to hope. We procced to declare ourselves as “realists” but truly, we become coded pessimists; more often seeing the glass half-empty than half full. We more often tend to come up with a million reasons why our great big idea wouldn’t work as opposed to seeing possibility even amid challenges. You see, as humans, we are wired to dream, to hope, to believe, to aspire, to explore, to be curious and to wonder. We see it so clearly in the little things including our infatuation with superheroes, main characters in movies, etc. We also see this with children. At less than 12 months (barely socialized), you would find a baby crawling to explore parts of your home. As they get older, the sense of wonder grows, you see them opening and exploring kitchen cabinets, asking you a thousand random questions per minute and doing some truly amazing things just because they want to see the outcome. You can tell I’m familiar with this life being a mum to an active 19-month-old and aunt to my beloved niece and nephew. Children grow with awe-filled eyes often approaching things with curiosity, energy, gusto, and a sense of adventure – sometimes up till their early/late teens. So, what changes as we get older?

The answer is usually “life happens”. In simple terms, a series of disappointing outcomes, events, and experiences lead to the depletion of our wide-eyed curiosity as we get older. This in turn, impacts our spirit of adventure as we unofficially strike out our great big ideas declaring them silly, childish, and outright laughable. Then, when we see others action our wild dreams and live out the colorful story we once imagined, we tell those around us with a weird tinge of regret and surprise in our voice, “That’s my idea! I thought of that before! Oh my god, she stole my idea, etc.” We then sigh, and say ‘oh well’, longingly romancing the idea for a few more seconds and then letting go of our big wild dream to focus on our “reality” – the life we have now while convincing ourselves that it’s great and we should be grateful.

I do hope my words haven’t pierced too deep. Well, you can tell by my ability to describe this so aptly that it was once a familiar terrain. I’m committed to living my best life today, not when I’m 65 and retired because the truth is while your mind never grows old, your body and energy levels don’t drink from the same fountain of youth to chase your wild dreams.

This week, I challenge you to find your sense of wonder again, to dream big and go on your adventure because your dreams are valid and each day is a gift to explore the “wild outback” of your imagination while serving your specific purpose here. I know life may have happened, and while I don’t undermine your experience, I challenge you to not waste the pain. Put it to use. Conquer it. Accept the fear as an invitation to prepare; then go chase your dreams. I’m not suggesting you resign your entire life to focus on this great big idea but rather to give yourself some bandwidth to explore because from this, may just come your next big thing. It may bring along a deeper sense of purpose, fulfilment, and perhaps an additional source of income. Wink.

So, how do you proceed?

Consciously allow your mind to explore new thoughts, write them down, invest the mental effort required to investigate it, approach it with the same resilience and tenacity you used to overcome previous challenges, build up your knowledge about it, pray about it, run a pilot on it, and if it’s worth it; stay on it with the required focus and energy; and see it come alive. While on this journey, please don’t be fixated on the process but work consistently towards your outcome.

Give yourself permission to dream. Live fully present in each day as it is a miracle. Then, keep at it; your dreams are valid, but will you give it what it takes?

Never forget,