Dreams, Ambitions and Aspirations: Working Towards Goals or Chasing Illusions and Fantasies?

Maybe it's just part and parcel of the human experience that many of us want to try to exercise the most possible control the outcome of our experiences.

As part of that, we have dreams and ambitions and aspirations to accomplish certain things. So we set goals and we make plans that can range from saving for retirement to having a fabulous wedding and then we work towards those.

Or, at least, we'd like to think we are working towards those, and somehow controlling our fates.

But how often are we guided by unrealistic expectations rather than attainable ambition?

I look back across my life and I think of — for example — young couples I've known who were very much in love and decided to get married and then they planned this huge and "perfect" wedding with so many aspects and facets that all "had to be perfect" that in the end they had spent $50,000 and ended up bitterly disappointed that they hadn't...? Hadn't? Experienced the true light of creation? What?

And not only did they end up disappointed, but they ended up divorced three years later in large part because of that disappointment and the backbreaking cost of that wedding which served to drive them apart rather than bring them closer together.

The original ambition of perfection was ultimately an illusion, not a reality.

Similarly I have known someone who stepped into a life of being a hourly retail sales worker after their ambitions you get an honors degree in law from Harvard Law and becoming partner in a major firm were dashed by what we might call "reality."

If we look a bit closer to home we might find a few people right here in our own Hive community whose ambitions might be to accumulate 100,000 HP simply from blogging and subsequently live a cushy life based around the fact that the hive token will rise to $20. Again that's a nice dream, but is it really anchored in any sort of reality?

Sure, I could wish for that, as well... but I am choosing to work with what I actually have in front of me.

Of course there are many possible interpretations of what might be considered "real," and what might not be considered real, and I'm certainly not someone you'd want to turn to as judge and jury of which is which! Sure, there's plenty of wisdom out there along the lines of “shoot for the moon, and you'll still end up among the stars!” but such words strike me as more motivational than based in any kind of reality.

Of course I'm not suggesting here that we shouldn't have goals and ambitions, merely suggesting that we might do well to anchor those goals and ambitions in some sort of tangible reality.
To use a bit of a trite metaphor, let's not plan the grocery budget around winning the lottery!

Alas, many people do, metaphorically speaking...

As a final thought, any one individual's approach is probably guided and informed by the way they respond to failure. It's a long way from the law student who became a retail clerk to someone who feels capable of "bouncing back" no matter what adversity comes their way.

Still, even the most resilient will likely not be able to reach a goal plucked from fantasy wishes rather than reality!

Thanks for reading and have a great week!

How about YOU? Do you have any goals or dreams that - upon reflection - have little basis in reality? Is it important that you actually REACH them, or just a vague wish? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20220921 01:12 PDT
0653/1899