If you find the courage to believe in your dreams, anything is possible.
Anything could happen.
It could all unfold as you saw it in your imagination. It can happen. It can all be real.
There’s a price to pay.
The bigger the dream, the greater the price.
Long hours. Fear. Doubt. Worry. Sacrifice. Loss.
But there’s so much to gain.
Even if a fraction of what you thought could be ended up happening, it would completely change your world.
This sense of belief is what lives in the child.
This is the kid in me speaking.
The same kid who ran around the yard dreaming up all sorts of plays and scenes to live in worlds away from the world I was in. My imagination was wild and untamed and saw that there was lifetimes of possibility.
As time went on that imagination became clouded with so many ideas, events and concepts that weren’t even mine. They made my mind murky and I headed down paths that I was told I should.
But I lost myself on those paths.
Can you imagine the confusion?
I thought I had people guiding me in the right direction…how could I end up here
But I kept going. I kept on listening and listening and yet the places I arrived at with this adventurous and persistent soul of mine ended up being fruitless.
All I was left with was a lot of energy expended and a story to tell of a place you can get to, but when you get there it disappears like sand running through your fingers.
I remained naive.
I placed my hope in things that would never yield anything.
I depended on people more than I depended on my intuition.
I believed in things that were just smoke and mirrors.
It nearly destroyed me.
Nearly.
This isn’t about that though. This is about what happens next.
I think life is going to put pressure on you no matter what. Things are going to go ways you never could have predicted and it’s going to fall apart at times. Forgive me for bringing up a cliché, but that pressure can either turn you into a diamond or into dust.
How are you going to handle it?
Are you going to let yourself lay down and quit or are you going to dig into your never say die attitude.
At times, I meandered in between those with a flurry of half-commitments and changing plans.
But as time has gone on, I can see that there’s always that 1 important thing right in front of you that if you push that domino down, all others will fall as well.
It’s about having focused, precise, diligently chosen decisions. If you can do that, the obstacles that face you become much easier to manage.
My greatest room for growth right now is to bring my attention back from looking at the big picture and harnessing all of that energy towards the very thing that is right in front of me. I haven’t been good at that so far in my life.
In fact, the big picture would move and shift and I would lose my way in the present.
But now, I’m coming back over and over again.
Whenever I wander, I bring myself back.
Because all I have is right now.
No magic or mirrors.
Just this heartbeat guiding me along the way.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project