Don't live the dream

I was reading a personal-advice blog today, and I noticed something interesting. The author did a terrific job of walking the reader through creative visualization to imagine a desired future. Then came the advice of breaking the dream into small, step-by-step actions used to create that future over time. Finally, the author drove home the point using variations on the popular phrase "living the dream."

I love the process, but I'm not wild about the wording.

You know, I never liked living the dream, and I highly recommend that you don't take it too literally or too seriously. When you're too focused on trying to get life to match the pictures in your head, then living the dream becomes the opposite of enjoying your life. It too often ends up being a seductive trap.

Don't live the dream. Instead, come to see your dreams as gasoline for your engine, fuel to get you motivated and energized. Once you're in motion, relax and concentrate. Drive your car, pay attention to where you are going, and get yourself to someplace wonderful, regardless of whether it matches your original idea.

For all of you who are skeptical about the theme of this posting, talk to any wildly successful and deeply happy person; ask them about the difference between their initial plans and how that translated into finished projects. They'll all tell you that the end result never, EVER looked EXACTLY like the original plan. 

An early lesson for me involved writing software manuals for a computer company in the 1980s; despite our most thorough research and planning, the several-hundred-page printed manual never matched our original outline. If we did our jobs well, it was BETTER than the original plan; we couldn't have dreamed of a better book.

So, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. As you bring a dream into reality, just make sure that you're awake and responding well to what's happening moment-to-moment: that's where your creativity and joy live.

I'll wrap up by quoting November Group, a wonderful Boston band from the 1980s. I think their lyrics to the song Work That Dream put dreaming an doing into proper perspective:

To work that dream
And love your life 
(Gotta work, gotta work!)

So,what's the dream? Does the singer of the song ever realize the dream? This joyful and exhilarating song never says so; she's too busy loving life and having fun.