Our Illusive Dreams

There is a dis­tance between what we thought life would be and what it is for us now. No mat­ter how suc­cess­ful we might be, we can­not help but think that it should look a bit dif­fer­ent than it does right now. It is more than finan­cial. As life pro­gresses, it is easy to feel like you have lost some­thing — that life has some sort of agenda that does not care what you wanted it to be. The trick is being able to go with the greater jour­ney and turn loose of your orig­i­nal expec­ta­tions and illusions.

Job was just mind­ing his own busi­ness when his tri­als began. His life became a night­mare, but it also became one of the great­est pieces of lit­er­a­ture ever writ­ten. The Apos­tles were just every­day peo­ple — until Jesus came along. He dis­rupted their lit­tle lives with true great­ness. I am sure that on any given day of preach­ing they won­dered what had become of their once pre­dictable lives.

Life throws you one curve after another. You can either be frus­trated with the game or find cre­ative ways of play­ing it pos­i­tively. You can­not con­trol it, but you can learn how to enjoy it. Life is hell for per­fec­tion­ists. For them, noth­ing is ever quite right. They strug­gle along in life star­ing at the gap between “should” and “is.” The harder they try, the more the gap seems to grow.

Dreams are esti­ma­tions. They are an imag­i­nary car­rot on a stick. They beckon us to reach. That is their pur­pose. It is our job to deal with the unat­tain­able. Per­son­ally, I find it to be an avenue to pon­der greater truths. If life ran along my own per­sonal track it would be dull. Bring on the unex­pected and even the dis­as­trous. The gap between ought and is serves as an oppor­tu­nity for spir­i­tual creativity.

We are into a new year. It is not going to turn out like you think it is. It will be bet­ter and worse at the same time. It all depends on where and how you choose to focus on it.