Why Dreams Die

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to dreams.  Not so much the dreams that we have in our sleep (although I did again have my re-occurring tornado dream the other night) but instead, the dreams that occupy our minds and hearts as we go about life doing the things that we wish we didn't have to do so we could do the things we really want to be doing - all along fearing that time will pass so quickly that we'll suddenly wake up and realize that the entirety of our life has passed and we never lived the dreams we dreamed.

I've come to believe that most people are living a life that is distantly removed from the life that once-upon-a-time they dreamed that they could, should, and would be living.  Every day they wake up in the morning and wonder how in the world they arrived at the place of having to spend the day doing the things that drain their souls of life.  They lay their heads on pillows and as sleep begins to overtake them, thoughts - nothing more than cerebral whispers of a hoped-for life that long ago vanished from the realm of possibility - drift teasingly in and out of their consciousness.  Why do dreams die?  Why do so many people exist as nothing more than biological entities plodding along from day to day both fearing and longing for the end of their days?

Every so often somebody breaks free.  Like the shadow-man who escaped from Plato's cave to experience the explosive beauty, the cerebral and emotional overload of a world; an existence too marvelous for words and too insanely glorious to be believed by those who chose to kill him upon his return rather than succumb to the risky possibility that something so hopeful could really exist.  I know a few of these liberated former cave-dwellers.

There was Ross.  He spent his days overseeing a transcription department at a large medical clinic to provide for his growing family.  Many times we would meet for lunch and he would talk about how his work parasitically drained the life from him.  One day he lost his job.  The responsible thing for him to do would have been to send out resumes, go through interviews, and finally land another job that would likely have completed the task of killing his soul.  No...Ross ran from the cave and began chasing dreams.  He found a handful of impoverished inner-city boys without fathers and spent his days teaching them how to be men of virtue.  Today, nearly 10 years later, Ross is no longer chasing dreams.  He caught them, or they caught him, and he lives each day with passion.

There was another friend named Kirby who also worked a responsible job to meet the needs of his family until one day he discovered that he was pretty good with some new computer technology with which you could draw cartoons.  He quit his responsible job, moved his family to Southern California, and began drawing computer animated cartoons and writing screenplays.  You've probably seen his work on television commercials and at the theater.  Today he has caught his dreams and is living comfortably as he spends his days doing the things God has gifted him to do.

What in the world would make a guy like Patrick quit his job, pack up his wife and child, and move to Ethiopia to live among starving, diseased, dying people?  A dream.  A dream that he could spend his days helping a dying child smile. 

Mary Lou paid her dues.  She worked for years and years as a teacher, pouring her life into educating high-schoolers.  It was time for retirement; time for her to take her pension and spend her days sipping tea in the shade of her backyard.  But her dreams don't live in her backyard.  She has chased her dreams all the way to Ghana where she is serving on a Mercy Ship bringing hope and healing to people who probably have never felt the faintest breath of hope.

I believe that people like this are in the minority.  They are exceptions.  They are the few who have somehow broken the shackles of reasonableness, common sense, logic, and "responsibility" in order to save their minds, hearts, and souls from the anesthetizing effects of reasonableness, common sense, logic, and responsibility.  They have chosen to live, not to simply exist - to flourish, not to simply survive.  But what about the rest?  Why do so many of us allow our dreams to die?  What stops us from dreaming and living?

When we walk through the landscape littered with dead and shattered dreams, we'll probably find that those dreams have fallen victim to one of three causes of death.

• The dreamer succumbed to the fear of failure that always comes wrapped in packages bearing the labels of "what if."
• The dreamer gave in to the thought that he must correct all of his own flaws before attempting to live his dreams.
• The dreamer gave in to the voices of the many "dream-killers" who descend like vultures upon the prey of anyone who would dare to dream that life could be different.

I was sitting in church Sunday morning thinking about these things.  I believe God spoke very directly and clearly to me that dreams only die when we allow them to die.  Neither of the three causes of death need be so.  In the following posts I'll spend some time talking more about these three dream diseases and how God has addressed them in His Word.

Comments

[Nick]

I personally feel like my dreams died because they were truly unrealistic. I also feel like there is no real future in them now and I need to persue other things. Helping people or finding something innovating has been key in your experience. My experience deals with people that have been far better than me at my chosen dreams that I have lost.

[coach purses]

Learning to trust in your own abundance is required. When you begin to be within your own space of abundance, whatever you need will appear whenever you need it.

[Patrick]

Wow. I certainly don't feel like an exception.
It makes me sad to think that "most" people's dreams die. However, I think you are correct. Furthermore I think your three reasons for the death of dreams are correct.

Following my dreams has been far from easy, but each sorrow has beem turned to joy.
Lana and I had to leave Ethiopia over eight years ago due to a health crisis with a twin pregnancy.
One of the twins was born with CP and still (at age 8) requires total care.
But this death of our life as missionaries gave birth to a new dream of supporting native ministers in Ethiopia, which is much more pleasing than the original dream.

My dream of being a missionary did die, but like a dead seed it has sprung to life. If my dream of living overseas had not died, Indigenous Outreach would have never been born. Some things have to die before they can truly live.

Following my dreams has almost killed me (and my wife), but already (we still are under 40) we have had a full, deep and passionate life.

When some dreams die there can be hope of resurrection.