What did I want to be when I was 5 or 6? I wanted to be an actress and I wanted to be the Queen of New England! (A few years later, the reality of geography and history took care of the latter!)
Life happened and I grew up - - thanks to a book I read "Approval Addiction", I now realize how/why I ended up making many of the decisions that I did the first several years of my life - - and many of those decisions eventually took me to a place where I didn't feel like I was able to have the luxury to dream - at least not the kind of dreams people think of when we talk about dreams, like Europe, a masters degree, an 87,000 sq ft house, etc., etc., etc., - - my dreams were more about survival. It made me angry to hear people tell me I had to dream big and invest myself in those dreams. How dare they tell me how to think and to insinuate (or that's how I perceived it) that somehow, I was less of a person by not having big dreams. For a long time, my biggest dream was to make it from one payday to the next and still have groceries on the shelf so the kids could eat and have enough gas in my car to get to work and back!
Thankfully, those days of feeling so desperate are behind me......however, I was still very defensive about feeling like I had to dream for things that seemed, to me, shallow and worldly. I had moved past the constant dream of getting from payday to payday, but somehow, a huge house and brand new car just seemed like silly frivolous dreams after freshly coming out of basic survival. My initial reaction was "DO NOT tell me I have to have a big dream. I AM LIVING my dream right now!"
Which led to my next bone of contention which was people thinking that being content (i.e. - not having a 'dream') was the same as being lazy. It was exhausting getting from where I was to where I am - - I wanted to enjoy my life, not spend my life constantly feeling like I always wanted more and more and more.
So, before I end up sounding like I'm angry and bitter and have an issue with 'the dreamers' of the world, somewhere along the line, I realized I can still dream, but my dreams don't have to be about 'things'. Except for going to Boston the year I turn 50, I don't think most of them are.
My friend Audrey showed me a website where I could create a dream board. I thought, at first, it'd be something fun I could whip out in an hour or so, but it's ended up being about a two, maybe three week process to put together. It was really very cathartic to be able to actually think about what is important to me - about where I really want to put my energy and in some cases, money.
http://www.oprah.com/dreamboard/index.html
In case you want to make your own dream board........
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