Dare To Dream Bigger Than You Ever Thought Possible

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I’m far too in love with this world to think that growing up means abandoning dreams, and I’m far too convinced that dreams do come true to find out what reality is really like, apart from what I want it to be.

I think it’s pretty special that we, as humans, even have the capacity to love,
And to dream so vividly without censorship on how we perceive the world and, then, project a reality out into it. For ourselves. For others. For anybody who will look up from his or her cell phones long enough to see it.

I think, above all, that its breathtaking to be capable of creation, given the ability to make things that go far what was intended to be created as a result of man’s existence on earth.

I like to think that we’re all okay, and even when we’re not, just having the choice to alter this reality gives me life as well as hope for a future that is not solely comprised of the scraps of broken dreams that came before our own, and dollar bills that didn’t quite make it into our pockets because we loved ourselves enough to choose not to unfairly compromise what is ours.

So you can go ahead and continue counting pennies,
Nickels, dimes, and quarters, too, if you define luck by the amount of loose change your fragile, right hand can find when sandwiched between leather couch cushions. If you still believe in Santa Claus and luck’s ability to change the things you are unwilling to alter yourself.

However, change fuels my fire, even after I reveal that money is insignificant to me in every sense.
The possibility of change’s existence, rather.
That is why I continue. Not because a kind stranger handed me On the Road and told me never to find God where I could find myself,
If only I put down the New Testament and looked hard enough.

A good book is good, but not when you are so unfamiliar with your self that a change in your diet and approach to human interaction would hardly make a difference.

And I did look hard enough. I looked everywhere. I looked for love too, but to no avail. What you cannot find in your heart, you’ll have a tough time finding in other people.

What the Psalms described as “patient” and “kind” did not exist is my own realm of perceived possibilities because love, I thought, is for those who deserve it, and although I’m incorrectly rephrasing a undeniably famous line from a critically acclaimed book, I truly believe that only we know for sure what we will receive from a life that blindly hands us the reigns.

Only we know what we deserve, I mean. And in saying that, we immediately create boundaries, separating ourselves from things as a form of protection: We’re protecting ourselves from beautiful and significant aspects of life on the basis that we couldn’t possibly be entitled to the unknown possibilities.
Because who am I?
And more importantly, who are you?

See what I did there? I made my point. I proved myself right, and isn’t that just the oldest trick in the book of fallacies; use of incorrect logic to reinforce a point that is not valid by nature. Though you are undoubtedly my equal, in the sense that our biological compositions likely differ only in characteristics, which require good vision to point out, and only a few years on earth to understand as a justified means of dividing one human from another.

We’re like that. We divide, even when we’re bad at math. We do it almost automatically most times, as if to say we will never leave the house without our scientific calculators, just incase of life. It’s how we display superiority, success, and ultimately how we give ourselves to the world.

Are you wrapped in a pink bow, or did the world forget to write you an ‘IOU’ when handing you the shorter stick?

What is it you deserve, then?

Moreover, what is it that you desire, based on your belief that you are receiving an inadequate amount of life on earth?

Now, rumor has it that Love is patient,
Love is kind,
And It does not envy,
But this holds true only if you assume a positive correlation between religion and your time on this planet.
Most people know better than that though, and those who don’t are just asking to be swept away in the finals gusts of wind that we re-named “hurricane season.” We just couldn’t quite explain things that weren’t sunshine and rainbows, I guess. Or maybe I just didn’t have any interest in pursuing a career in meteorology at the university level.

Love is often frustrating as hell,
So much so that divorce rates are sky rocketing higher distances towards space than a rocket, launched into the cloud filled skies could ever hope to reach in its life span.
Love doesn’t envy if you grow up in an affluent neighborhood without a single need,
If you truly believe in your heart of hearts that your material possessions are not only enough, but so plentiful that you’ll likely never feel the pangs of desire, envy will slip through the small spaces between your tiny fingers.

These pangs of desire, as they travel from one’s turning stomach to the aching heart that refuses to take a cigarette break from its job of keeping man alive, they are really the only possession that is yours to keep.

Understand that a few late payments on your mortgage are grounds for re-possession of your material possessions that, to this day, still serve as physical proof that you’re doing alright, even when you’re mentally perched on the railing of the Brooklyn Bridge, only second guessing your decision because what if life puts up a fight against your desired end in death? What if, in feeling that you are not strong enough for life’s punches and challenges, the only thing standing between your single-handedly contributing to a rising trend in teenage suicide is the chance that you’ll be forced to live beyond your desired time frame? When you have everything, it’s hard to be driven by a desire to accomplish things when that desire isn’t a necessary part of your survival.

Just ask any lottery winner. Those that are still living and breathing that is.

Desire to succeed can motivate, drive, even physically push people to exceed believed capability, going beyond a want to succeed, replacing it with a need, and in turn, allowing individuals to reach states bigger than themselves.

It’s kind of like those times where, in a moment where self-defense dictates whether or not you take your last breath in a difficult, trying situation, you acquire strength that is often considered super human. These moments of hyper-physical strength are not a sign that whatever god you were praying to pressed the pause button on his X-box controller, but it reveals to us that we are indeed capable of things beyond the places our imagination takes us.

We are, after all, bigger than our bodies.
I think John Mayer said that, but I’d hate to give credit to someone who hides behind captivating vocals and decent guitar solos.
I was only a part of the middle school choir because it seemed like the cool thing to do at the time, but if I learned anything there, its that love isn’t just a five minute long track, nor is it an instrumental solo that seems like it may actually be a literal embodiment of infinite existence.
I also learned that I was much better off resting my vocal chords for a time, later in life, where I would use them to speak words that might matter to other people, because singing just isn’t for everyone.

Still, we are bigger than ourselves, only trapped in self-imprisonment, and only rarely imprisoned via jail sentences resulting from our own mistakes. We can and often choose to be small, but why? Our love for small things is almost always fleeting, like a new puppy whose name you can quite recall because it followed nature’s course and no longer fits in a teacup.

We don’t love big things, unless we can buy them and they have some sort of monetary value we can use to identify ourselves with. Big is nearly always negative here in America, where the land of the free and home of the brave took off decades ago and only rarely sends post cards from its travels abroad. We’re not free. We cannot exceed 100 pounds and hope to grace the cover of a magazine that depicts us as anything other than objects for play and eventual disposal.

I guess it is more logical not to say that we are bigger than ourselves, but that we can be bigger than what we are in the present. To believe you are on top of the world, at any given time, takes away from the possibility of ever reaching such great heights, but hey, to each his own.
Love can be patient,
And it can also be kind,
If we were kinder to each other, the simplicity of these biblical excerpts would not be shrouded by a need to raise our voices only with the intention of drowning others out. Perhaps, though not presently, we will one day know lines like these to be true. Perhaps we won’t always be scared to be, whatever ‘being’ truly is, or can be.

And even when we’re falling out of love, maybe we can still be patient in these moments, and as a result, others will be kind.

So long as love exists, in the multitude of forms it can and often chooses to take, I believe in the power of dreams.
Still, even if I’m right all of the times I pray to a God whose existence I still question, that I wish to be wholeheartedly wrong, I remain certain that the existence of dreams is proof that reality can be a beautiful thing.

And even when you silence your alarm clock a final time in the early morning hours, sometimes even before the sun forces itself out of hiding and into the sky, you must believe me when I tell you that your reality is your own creation.

Every choice you make and opportunity you forgo because you understand the reality of life only through monetary acquisition and promotions on the social ladder is your decision to remain prisoner.

On the same day that I look to the sky only to spot pigs flying up above I will purchase the newest edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary, only to find the words “9 to 5 cubicle employment and rare, short-lived moments of happiness. *employment in the creative fields excluded indefinitely” neatly typed to the right of the word, Reality.

Only on this day will I accept another’s definition of success and failure, apart from the ones I attached to pursuing my own dreams. Surely, love will be defined only as a state of contentment that does not motivate individuals to part with their comfort zones.

I’m not a scientist, but I can tell you this:

The Bible’s origins are questioned daily by scholars and avid believers alike, and men and women stay in love-less relationships only because they are afraid to face the world by themselves. Every day, people set aside their passions, talents, and the very same creative outlets that kept them alive in middle school when they experienced their very first suicidal thoughts after a bus ride gone horribly wrong. People will tell you that you’re only as successful as your list of accomplishments when typing your first and last name in the Google search bar.

Perhaps you’re feeling lucky, but that doesn’t guarantee you an escape. I know little about how the human brain works, apart from how cluttered the contents of my own mind are, but I know that if you don’t buy into the idea that your dreams must dissolve in order to define yourself in a positive light that society will accept, you will possess far more than any amount of loose change you find in your couch could ever purchase for you.

Maybe fear silences your desire to question reality, apart from what you’ve come to understand it to be, but I’m afraid of the dark and still I walk when the lights are off. I willingly embark on paths that are admittedly void of any light that would suggest safety or re-assurance that another came before me. I cling only to a dream I couldn’t trade for a used Gameboy at Best Buy. One that will never afford me a decent meal or offer much stability in terms of money or job security.

I’m too busy believing in myself, I suppose,
To believe the things you assure me are rooted in truth.

Love can be honest,
And it can be brave,
But if you don’t love yourself, and you don’t acknowledge the significance of pursuing a dream, hope, or desire,
There’s no nightlight that could ever brighten your path down the tunnel of understood reality. A tunnel that deceives those who fall for anything, but separates the weak from the strong at heart.
Those who know that reality can be found, even in the strangest of dreams and the most unconventional ideas the human mind is capable of conjuring up in the late evening.

Take my comfort zone and well lit path if they soothe you in your journey, because I find comfort in knowing that the dreams I possess, are my own, and cannot be re-possessed regardless of my failures or mistakes made along the way.

I dream, only for myself,
But I wish more than anything, that others do the same.

I found love once, and for a while I misplaced it,
But in the end, I realized it had been with me all along,
In my heart, and invisible only when I believed it did not exist.

Maybe love is only a dream, and more than likely most dream only of love,
But reality exists only in combination with the two,
And if it were a painting, not a single soul could argue its beauty.
Because the beauty is in your own creation of a reality that allows your dreams to exist within it, so comfortably so, that loving yourself becomes second nature and unquestionable, because you have met your human desires by means of personal creation.

featured image – Helga Weber