On Saturday, I went to see the University of Virginia (UVA) play Clemson in college football. It was ugly. Luckily, I am a fan of neither team and could just enjoy the atmosphere and the people that I was with.
Several of my high school students had been selected to play the halftime show alongside the University marching band. Over 1000 band members took the field and put on an amazing show of not only musical skill but coordination as they marched into different shapes & words across the football field.
It was quite the honor for the high school students to be able to march with someone that was where they wanted to be next. For a moment their dreams were tangible.
Ironically one of the songs they performed was a blend of the songs ‘Walk This Way’ (RunDMC) and ‘Dream On'(Aerosmith).
How boring would life be without dreams? Something we are moving toward.
Let’s Talk.
What are your dreams? What tangible steps are you taking toward them?
dVerse 
I think dreams/aspirations are very important but you need to be careful that they are not set in stone. Life is a road with twists and turns and one needs to be flexible about expectations. You need to leave yourself open to new opportunities that may lead you in a direction you hjad not forseen before. The French Foreign Legion had a motto “March or Die”. I think that is applicable to living. It’s okay to rest but not stop. We must keep moving forward because life isn’t about destinastions, it’s about traveling in directions. Dreams are merely the signposts we see that point us in the wayus we think we want to go. >KB
ah i def agree..you never know where the road will lead…i had a dream once…or what i thought was a direction for my life…and when the road changed it really messed me up for a bit…not about destinations but traveling directions…i so agree there….you see ones that achieve a level and then stop and they only start going back ward….
I so appreciate your comment, annotating60, as I am at a true crossroads in my life now. Decisions I make now and in the near future will affect the rest of my life. I find myself almost separating from the situation, standing back and observing the attending passion and pathos with interest…until the realization once again hits me that this is happening to me, that I am the one who must decide which signpost to follow. One leads to my own front door, the other leads me in that direction I had not foreseen that you mentioned.
what a place to be eh? an what a weight that decisioning…sometimes i think we have to take that step out of the situation to gain a perspective….
What a weight indeed. You are probably right about how to gain a perspective. Thanks, Brian.
Great topic, Brian! I think I need to make some changes for career advancement & new place to live. My husband just changed careers & he’s going back to school for an advanced degree. So very proud of him. Next is my turn! I believe change is good, to shake things up & try something new. Change can also be a bit scary, risky. But sometimes we just need to take a chance. A part of me likes stability, too. I want to make changes that are necessary & important, not just for the sake of change, you know. I’m getting ready for the next phase of my life. 2014 will be the year for dreams come true … I just know it. Thinking positive. Smiles 🙂
this sounds wonderful… i think it’s nice to do something new every once and a while…keep moving… but yeah…not just for the sake of change…it should make sense as well… and cheers to 2014 as the year for dreams come true…
i def agree on taking chances…there have been a few times in life i have made som radical changes…and its scary and exciting all at the same time…but…i know for me, my passion is working with kids…the job i do in relation to that is just the texture of how that plays out…and i know all about going back to school…ha…not easy
My life has given me no option but to adapt to change. One of the reasons why I like astrology and find it so useful is because it reveals, quite clearly, the nomadic nature of my life which was not something I planned, but rather, something which happened. As a child we moved house four times; between 18 and 20 I moved home five times and then in the next 43 years I set up home 32 times – more than once in hotel rooms – a year in India – around Australia and then the world so not just homes changed but jobs, friends, circumstance….none of it planned, it just happened. Although clearly we are both risk-takers since we have lived in war-zones and spent many years in Third World countries.
It certainly has not been and is not dull but it is like anything in life, there is a curse in the gift and vice-versa. I have friends and family who have lived in the same home for more than 40 years which to me is inconceivable. The longest I have ever lived in any house, anywhere is four years. Just about time for the Spring Clean I always said which the removalists could do. We bought a farm in Adelaide as a base, sixteen years ago, but I would be lucky to have spent all up, four years there, given quarterly returns home as a general rule.
On the positive side you de-clutter constantly; you generally have a pretty clean house; you learn not to become attached to material things or particular places; you develop enormous perspective about the world; you see yourself reflected, not always well, against the backdrop of many different cultures; you meet and befriend people from all around the world; and you never get bored. Not that I am inclined to boredom anyway with so many things to do.
On the negative side, you lose the continuity of relationship with friends and with family; you lose the opportunity to commit to things – writing groups, academic study, art classes etc.,; you spend far too much time in airports; you meet wonderful people and then leave them behind and you are separated often from those you love deeply.
I have also learned that deprivation breeds appreciation and you don’t take things for granted when you live such a nomadic life. Even more so with many years in the third world.
I so love this prompt. Right up my alley….will return!
nice…if you write about it, drop it at OLN tomorrow…
SPIRIT
Stop swimming fishes will and can,
stop walking beasts and also man.
Stop flying birds can really not,
on wings the fancy I have got.
*smile* I am working to get my poems published. And getting them published will be fun. But my dream is Christ.
The locus is published | here |.
nice. i hope that you achieve getting published anders. it is pretty cool to see your words in print…i had the same dream once and then backed off of it…
nice… i think dreams are important… sometimes just for the sake of dreaming with the knowledge they may never come true and being ok with it but some also as the fuel that keeps the motor running day by day…. think one of my dreams is to live in another country for some years, get to know another culture, learn another language… nothing i’m actively taking steps toward but yeah – you never know…
nice…i would love to as well…this spring/summer i will be traveling to india and possibly africa on missions trips…which is a dream of mine that i have had for some time…i guess i have to come home afterward though eh? smiles…
When I was a child (up to about the age of 15 or so), I had the wildest, most grandiose dreams: of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, of buying a castle with a vineyard and a forest, etc. etc. Then I don’t know exactly what happened (perhaps failure struck or unflattering comparisons started) and I began to talk myself out of my dreams, for fear I was setting myself up for disappointment.
Now I am beginning to appreciate even the little dreams: of the next holiday or free weekend, or a book read solely for pleasure.
smiles.. i always wanted to live in a lighthouse when i was a kid… to have the light rotate above your head and the raging sea outside… i thought that would be the most exciting and comforting place in the world..
a light house would be so cool…they have always carried such a symbolism for me…smiles.
Me, too! I am from the state where they have 61 lighthouses~
heh. i have a poem i wrote about alight house that i have never published…may dust that off for oln….
I would love to read it! 😀
Yes, yes, me too – still dream about it – or a mountain chalet.
smiles…i do think our dreams change over life…maybe we settle for at times too…i want to dream big bodacious dreams again…and then pursue them, you know…smiles…
Yes, do it! Big smiles… I want to be a cover girl(art cover). It is one of those validation type dreams. I always wanted to be an artist-many people have tried to talk me out of it. It is who I am-yes, I am an Idea Fairy-lol!
smiles. i remember you telling us that…and it would be very cool for you to get that validation and be able to show them….and good job not giving up on who you are….
It isn’t easy being green-lol! (different)
Dreams are often the fuel you run on. Somehow I think taking care of disappointments is even more important.. Very few people can live their dreams (which is more or less good). To accept what’s good in life and move on is a skill which we learn and have to learn to survive…
i agree….and believe me – i have a masters degree in accepting life as it comes and if one way doesn’t work, i’ll find another without asking too many questions… but sometimes i think, am i denying my dreams for the fear of being disappointed – it needs a certain braveness to dream…no..?
i agree as well…managing disappointments is huge…what happens when dreams die…i think it does take bravery to dream …i dont know that contentment is bad either…i think there is a balance to be struck there…i def dont want to be stuck you know…
Bjorn-so true! I do think we have to find a balance, as Brian said. Yes, Claudia I too feel my hard knocks degree has kept me from being discouraged. What do you have to lose? I had this fear and became ill-it rearranged my time line and I decided to fake brave. I read a book once about doing what you love. If you get your foot in the door of your dream-you will be happy! My brother always wanted to be a famous ball player. Now, he says he would be happy to mow the ball field lawn and be part of the magic.
This is an interesting question for me. I often confuse dreams with aspirations, or at least I used to. Like when I was 18 I used to say my dream was to become President of the USA. Not sure why I wanted that, but I didn’t have any plan so obviously, it didn’t happen 🙂 Dreams of being a writer has stuck with me the longest, I guess. Nowadays my dreams are less aspirations, more just hopes … my life is in major shambles at the moment so I don’t even dare dream for feeling stupid about it. I think dreams are useful, they can be fuel that moves you to do things that can impact people’s lives, and that to me sounds really attractive. Right now, though I would just like to have a nice happy home where people are always stopping by to visit. A life full of joy and encouragement, inspiration, compassion, and a loving, nurturing environment for my children.
ha. i def DO NOT want to be president…ha….i think a happy home is a great dream as well…and one that is open and has people stopping in..i think that a rather beautiful dream…and one i hope you def dont give up on…it can be hard…
Smiles … I will not give up on that one Brian 🙂
Give me a dreamer, or a poet, or a poet writing about their dreams, or a dream about writing a poem any time. Actually we use the term “dream” kind of loosely. Our REM dreams are not very often coherent enough to then create 5 year life plans or our conduct on. Somehow it is the daydreams, the fantasies, that fuel our resolve, give volition to our aspirations. I used to dream of being a teacher, and after 33 of teaching I begin to dream of not being one. I used to dream about being an actor, about being in movies, TV, commercials, but after a decade of broken heart soup and frustration of being a actor endeavoring to make a living from his art, I took a hiatus that lasted 40 years. Ironically, even with ill health I used to dream about somehow exorcising my talent, and circumnavigating my disabilities. Then last year I found a community theater 6 blocks from my house, and now I am a member of their company; disabilities, warts, & all; a forum for my acting, my photography, performance art, and open mic poetry; wow. I never dreamed of being a poet; I just seem to always have been one since I can remember; those few adolescent poetics are quite to novelty to dig out once in a while. I have friends & family that dig the fact that I pursued many dreams like a starving wolf, and ran them down, and chewed out their innards, that somehow I forged a semblance of reality out of the mist of daydreams; even if none of them became a lifetime pursuit. Really dig your African missionary dreams, brother; may they come to fruition.
oh they are…on a one way collision course at this point…pretty cool to go back to a dream that was dormant for 40 years as well g….
I love this comment!
This video and song by Noel Gallager will fit your blog.
My dreams are to one day become a famous or well known poet, and change the course of history with my poetic style of writing. 🙂
that is a really cool video charlie….you mean you are not famous already? smiles. you def have a unique…and great styling charlie….
I love Noel Gallager…he writes such deep songs…he’s voice is rich and perfect. 🙂
Thank you brian for your wonderful compliments. 🙂 You are such a great friend and thank you for you always being you. 🙂
Charlie I predict you are on your way! I will be back to watch the video~
🙂 ellaedge you will like the video…:)
def very artistically done….
🙂 Thanks brian.
I do ;D
P.S check out my new blog poem.
I’ve read the entire conversation here, all the while admiring you dreamers and asking myself why I don’t have any dreams anymore. Then I realized that all I want to do is live until I die. I’ve seen too many people who just stop. I don’t want to stop growing and learning and loving.
smiles. i want to live every day..you know…i def have seen those that stop living…and i want nothing to do with that…
As far as dreams go, I think most everything ‘good’ begins with a dream. If a person has no dreams, he/she is stagnant. Dreams give a person a beginning. Dreams may change as life evolves, but if a person has no dreams he/she has no quality of life as I see it. I can’t imagine how dull life would be without a dream of some kind to hope / strive for tomorrow.
i agree…i think at times it is hard to see our dreams…(ha. here comes the other side of me)…or maybe just easy to lose sight of those dreams in the face of just surviving…almost as if they go dormant for a bit because we are too busy doing otherthings…
Brian, I think those dormant dreams often resurface. I do agree that there are perhaps times in life when surviving is all we do….but the dreams are still there, and like a seed after the spring thaw, will arise again IF given any encouragement.
true that…i like the analogy of the dormant seed….
Within 18 months I hope to be in the dream of an early retirement, a move to a cottage at the coast, and to concentrate fully on reading and writing, but the real dream is the wish fulfilment of wanting good/better things for loved ones and hoping they find contentment.
i like the heart behind that of wanting something for others brian…
The idea is great and the comments wonderful. My real dreams are generally bizarre and somewhat warring. One of my most memorable is from early childhood when I am about 8. I am “out” in the universe where the stars are and it is fairly dark. I am on some sort of platform that is lit up. I am a kid and I am jousting (for real) with one knight after another. There are 3 of them. The first is in white pearl armor, the second in pale blue pearl armor and the next in white pearl armor. I too am on horseback. I am not wearing armor. I win. Totally weird!
ha. liz….i almost want you to achieve your dream so i can see it on a youtube video…smiles…now those kinda dreams…i have had a few rather freaky dreams…mine that stuck with me is not rather pleasant, but….
Yes, wild dreams are very fun. Bad dreams not so much.
Dreams are insightful. I am sure this dream had relevance to your circumstances as a child. There you are, out there alone in the universe, which is as big as it gets for a child, jousting (which is not fighting for your life) to prove your strength with knights dressed in pearl (symbol of purity) armour. Two white, perfection and purity, one blue, the colour of the Great Mother Goddess. You are on horseback – horses symbolise our energy, ‘animal’ strength but also a powerful archetypal image – and you have no armour – this is the real you, jousting – battling – against those who have some defence. love the dream.
Thank you – I enjoyed your interpretation.
I’ve had so many dreams and in little ways over the years I think I’ve accomplished most…it’s funny sometimes you think of a dream as this big almighty thing that will somehow make you famous, rich or it’s really over the top…and you think to yourself that if it doesn’t make you wealthy or famous then it’s not a real dream or you’re a failure for not reaching or making it when in reality you may well have…just not in the way you envisioned. I know that happened when I had a business…that was one of my dreams and for 2 and a bit years I lived it…wasn’t the greatest success story in the world, in fact it closed down but…it was one goal reached and I can be planted quite happily with that question mark lifted…there’s just a few more to go…he he! I do think dreams are the most important things in the world no matter how big or small. Such an inspiring topic! 🙂
ah i think you really hit on something there….sometimes our dreams do come true just not in the way we expected….there always needs to be another question mark you know…smiles…
I’ve been so fortunate in life. Can’t say I had aspirational dreams, yet I achieved more than I could have dreamed. I am a dreamer though, just a different kind i guess. My dreams are unspecific, too universal perhaps – joy, inner peace etc. My grandmother used to say I was simply naive because I dreamed of the impossible.
its got to feel good to think you have accomplished more than you ever could have dreamed….ah, dream that impossible dream….smiles.
I am the same Myrna and with a similar outcome. I believe more often than not, and we are all different, the universe requires us to trust more than demand.
Had it not been for dreams words like hope, spirit would not have been there and life would have missed its (!). And the confluence of all these words keep beeping – one day, perhaps, soon…:) I think at every stage of life our dreams take a different turn. Like going up a curve and some are harnessed while juggling with the real practical aspects of life – family, kids, job et al. But thankfully they are harnessed for that keeps the dream alive of seeing them in form one day, some day! I bet in this forum, poetry is that harnessed dream for us! 🙂
hopefully there comes a day when our responsibilites allow us to unharness them as well….
oh! yes Amen! 🙂
These are dreams as in wishes and desires as opposed to dreams of night. Dreams are best held lightly and never demanded I find.
I had dreams as a child, but that was mainly to escape from realities. I think my life has been challenging but very interesting once I got beyond childhood and I think I also learned quite young that whoever was organising or planning my life was doing a pretty good job so less dreaming and more living in the Now.
I also believe that we write the story of our lives, or the script, before we are born and while there is flexibility on production, direction, staging, acting etc., what happens is generally meant to happen and ‘dreams’ or desires, wishes, fantasies can get in the way.
Make the best of the bit you are in works for me, but we are all different. I have plenty of things I would ‘like’ to experience but I don’t need any of them and I don’t demand any of them. Having said that, after some 60 years in this material world, my experience has been that pretty much everything for which I have ever wished has come to pass without me doing anything much except having the thought and getting on with life. Not everything though, including being an acknowledged author, but that too is something I don’t need. Certainly not to make my life fulfilling.
When I was young I desperately wanted to travel. In fact the Australian ‘norm’ was and is for young people to head overseas and travel for a few years and most of my friends did just that. I was married a few weeks after I turned 21, and a mother not long after I turned 22 and with two children by the time I was 23. The overseas journey of discovery of self was not going to be my/our experience. Or so it seemed.
Then, out of the blue, at the age of 36, I found myself living in Europe and I have not stopped travelling since – setting up home 32 times in 43 years of marriage around Australia and the world. I have lived in Antwerp, Bombay, Luanda, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Lusaka, Lilongwe, London, Vancouver, Boston, New York, Lisbon, Moscow ….and so it has gone.
I could not have planned it better with children grown up by the time I was forty and more travelling than I had ever imagined. And my life was nothing like I had ever dreamt as a child – much better in fact. Albeit with a goodly dose of challenges! But nothing is perfect – except dreams.
smiles…ah you have def lived a dream of mine, to travel and see…i have that pull most def….my the places you had been as well…make the best of the bit you are in…def some truth to that as well
I like to dream small and hope big…
My only dream for years..was just to see…
I’ve got that now..and really can’t imagine any other dream but hope…
hope…yes….what is it you hope for? or hope to give?
Love more than anything else..in real life..my friend..
I was without hope for over 5 years..and without that hope there was no possibility to do that..
As soon as the hope came back the ability to do that was basically reborn in my soul…
But..I did not plan on losing it when I did..it left when it wanted to and came back when it was good and ready..
More than anything now I take peaceful measures to keep it..
I think more than anything else the reason I lost it was simply fear…
Fear is the enemy for me..my religion is basically one to fight against this internal devil that used to rule my life..
I am winning the battle..and finally feel the success that comes as hope and love…
Without that I am simply dead in effect and affect..
My way of life has always been hope and love…
But fear is the element that i have only recently defeated in around five decades of life..when I learned fear..sometime after the age of 3….
Yeah..i know that was kind of an abstract answer..and oh my GOD…it’s nice to be around people who understand abstract language…
After love and hope the will just seems to naturally blossom..for all types of Good will for others in many measurable positive activities..that come to life..after that….
It’s like a flower blossoming..it’s just beautiful…why ask why is the way i look at life now…the mysteries..at least…
smiles…i hear you…and feel you as well when it comes to fear…
after love and hope the will just seems to naturally blossom…i like that…
and def the mysteries are well worth appreciating more than analyzing…
Now that I am retired, I have to say that I never dreamed THIS–time to indulge in writing and creating-! Some of the surprises life deals out are pleasant ones. Imagine being able to stop peddling so hard? Goals change and talents reveal themselves, and some of the trouble I lived through has opened new directions at last. Dream on and help people dream, reality will remain, but the heart needed to move forward will get stronger and stronger.
ha. retirement is one dream i dont have…maybe its the cynic in me that believes i will never see that day…i have traded fluidity in younger life and my vagabond job nature for future security
I didn’t have it either. I had almost no savings and expected to be carrying on with any work I could get –and things may come to that in a few years. But right now, wow. If I had expected this, I might notice more of what I do not have than what I have. I didn’t have any retirement system at all until I began college teaching at age 40. I had no hope. yet …
well you just gave me a bit of hope…considering i am there…smiles.
dreams
can be trampled
crushed
one
must always cling on
to hope
no matter what
never give up
my dream
is
to never lose
hope
smiles…reminds me of Jimmy V…a basketball coach for NC State….very encouraging….
I think my best dreams are the ones I didn’t know I had.
oo now there is a thought….smiles.
I am late in replying, apologies. I couldn’t sleep, it’s 5.30am possibly a time when others are up and getting ready for their day, but a dream that I may have had without even realising it was to change my profession at the age of 58. Working in office jobs all my life from the age of 16.. a change was required. Now I am a Funeral Celebrant and about to conduct my 2nd service tomorrow for a dear friend of our family. How life does twist and turn, some dreams only remaining a fantasy…whereas others as the Walt Disney song says… really do come true. Making your life different, grabbing opportunities when they present. Writing was a dream, is a dream that has come true..an open heart, an open mind and determination can make anything possible. Sorry for the ‘rant’ as I said it’s early for me. Great topic Brian.
Walk this way and dream on – that could be a poetic prompt all one line!
Dreams – blessings – joy – desire
Finding that our compass, like Jack’s
only points to what we want most
and not the points on the rose.
North and magnetic north are
not the same, and what do
we do when things head
south?