The Painful Lesson I Learned About Dreams That Never Come True

The difference between knowing and doing—and why taking action unlocks the life you’ve always wanted.

“There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” — Morpheus

The messages always seem to find you when you need them the most.

This one really hit me.

It’s one thing to know something.

But to live it — to experience it through and through — is something else entirely.

It’s only when the thought, the word, and the action align that truly incredibly things begin to unfold.

The thought, is easy.
The word, is challenging.
The action, well, that takes everything you have.

As time has gone on, it has become more and more clear to me just how much actions outweigh everything else. While awareness is truly a gift, it’s very far from the end of the story.

Nothing manifests from thoughts and words alone.

Commitment and action are the mortar of our reality, and without them, our best intentions sift through our fingers like sand.

Depth only comes from stepping into the arena of life and facing whatever comes your way.

The experience gained from wading through the mud and traveling blindly into the unknown on faith cannot be faked, manufactured, or copied.

You either have the receipts, or you don’t.

Because it fundamentally changes you to the core.

How could it not?

How could being asked to let go of what you’ve known and committing yourself to something that you cannot see — but deeply believe in — not change you?

The pressure shapes, molds and constructs you into something you couldn’t have been without it.

But it’s the exact same ask that’s the reason why so many paths are left untraveled.

Because whenever letting go comes into the equation, a significant amount of fear bubbles up from the depths.

It’s enough fear to stop you dead in your tracks if you let it.

I’m no stranger to that.

I’ve found myself stuck in The Land Of 1,000 Tomorrows, struggling to keep my head above water in an ocean of fear more than a few times in my life.

I used to think that there was some magic in tomorrow that would help me summon the courage to move forward and make the changes I needed to in my life.

But tomorrow will be the same as today if you don’t make the change within.

The truth is, there’s no perfect time to begin. In the end, the only thing holding you back is the decision in your heart — the one you know you have to make — that’s been left unmade.

Once you make that choice, everything begins to snap into place.

That’s where the magic lives — in commitment.

Joseph Campbell, one of my favorite authors once said,

“Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.”⁣

For quite some time now, I’ve been asking myself that question, “What would bliss be like?”

When I close my eyes, I can see it.

Joy.
Warmth.
Possibility.
Freedom.
Happiness.

And then, there’s me.

The real me.

The one who deeply understood that the path unfolds as you walk on it.
The only who acted on a vision with courage and saw it all the way through.
The one who always chose the light no matter how dark things seemed to get.
The one who let love lead the way, even if the way involved the hardest choices possible.

That’s what I see.

That’s my bliss.

Would it be worth all the effort and commitment in the world to unearth that dream?

Yes.

A thousand times yes.

Of course.

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Thank you for being here,
—Evan