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when you realize that your dreams may never come true...

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+ 1 to Athenian200.

We are the creators of our dreams. During points of our lives we think we have strayed this is rarely the case, our subconscious knows and lets you know when you are moving away from that which makes you happy. When you are satisfied in life and happy without the clap trap of anyone else influence of how it should be, could be, must be. Then you are more in tune, along the path of what your dreams are in relation to the happiness that is created. And you draw from those experiences bubbles of dreams that move you towards a greater extension of your dreams, bit by bit. This can be anything random and small to big and large, the point is dreams are made from the happiness that you are in a situation of experience that creates the spaces of satisfaction instead of dissatisfaction. And you find them along your way more and more than you know. When you place expectations there to where you are meant to be as many do, myself included, then you are placing a burden of proof to the validity of the dissatisfaction rather than the satisfaction of knowing you are moving towards that which pleases you more and more.
 
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I've always told myself that if my dreams don't come true, I can always make someone else's nightmare reality.
 

Such Irony

Honor Thy Inferior
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How do you know when to give up and when pursuing your dream is no longer fruitful? I know giving up has a stigma to it but in some cases its not bad and could even be in your best interests. Seriously, I want to know.

Here's another related question, how many failures can you tolerate before throwing in the towel? I think I read somewhere that Thomas Edison had hundreds of failed attempts before succesfully inventing the light bulb. There have been authors that have been rejected by dozens of publishers before that great novel of theirs got published. It's good that our society has extraordinarily persistent people like these. Otherwise we might not have had the opportunity to read some of the great classic novels and some inventions may have not come to be. Or if they did, it may have been much later by someone else.

Realistically though, I seriously doubt most people could tolerate the number of failures that Edison and someone the famous novelists did without seeing success. Personally, I'd probably throw in the towel somewhere between 5-10 failures.
 

highlander

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what do you do when you reach the point in your life when you realize that all of the things you really wanted to do when you grew up are very unlikely now... when you wonder if you sold out your goals for comfort. Do you give up? Do you still try? Do you try to find a compromise? Am I the only one who wonders if they've hit that fork in the road? :thinking:

I think everyone goes through this in one form or another. Another thing that can happen is you actually do get 90% of what you wanted and then find out you didn't necessarily want all of the right things. Dreams to me are very important but we need to realize the influences that shaped those dreams at the outset when we were young, were not necessarily the right ones and that we need to adjust.

This is a stupid example but I thought I would have my own Lear Jet. I realized somewhere along the line that not only did I not really need one but that I would never spend that kind of money on frivolity even if I had $100M dollars. So, I changed my goals. We moderate the level of risk because we have responsibilities. These things shift and change. I guess I think it's really important to realize the things that are important and to want the right things. Knowing what you want is then half of the battle in getting there.

What I wonder about is people who spend a great deal of their lives working towards achieving a certain dream and then realizing that its just not going to happen? Say, for example, an olympic hopeful practices 4 hours a day for years in a particular sport but then has an injury that prevents the dream from ever being realized. Or the person just simply isn't quite good enough to make the Olympics? I wonder what these people feel. Do they feel totally devastated to the point where they feel like their whole life purpose is lost? Or is it more disappointed but they can still look back on all the fun they had chasing the dream? I seriously wonder this because, you hear all these stories about people who achieved their dreams in spite of insurmountable odds but you never seem to hear about the greater number of people who tried and didn't make it.

These things even if you get them always come at a cost. We can spend so much of our lives always wanting more that we don't learn to appreciate the things that we have. Some types are terrible at this - they always have to be achieving more and more with an ever increasing bar to be happy. Our dreams can be surrounding us every day of our lives though. If we don't enjoy the process, we end up arriving at the destinations we've worked so long and hard for unfulfilled, wishing we'd done some things differently.

Other types tend to be more joyous in their lives - it seems like ENFPs maybe. Some of this is probably type related.
 

Ghost of the dead horse

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I've sold out my goals for comfort, but I feel as if I'm getting a second try. I've let go of my ideas that I'd surely be great. I'm trying to do something more, perhaps it will turn out great, or perhaps not. Something will happen and I'll like it. I can try something and see something more come out of it. Dreams, well.

I think it's happened to me. The fork in the road. Seemed like an end to me.

My dreams are partial. They favor me.

I've only dreamed to succeed on a great level. I haven't wanted to work hard on a great level. After a comparison, I feel that my dreams haven't told me the right direction. Everything seems so much easier in dreams.

In reality, I want to juggle things, experiment, I want to be lazy - I don't not to be a hardworking citizen. Sometimes I have been able to be hardworking, but I don't know how that fits in with my dreams. What's my life in practice is quite different of what I want of myself in theory. I don't know which one of them is wrong.
 

carnada

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Thank god a few of my dreams have become true, so I cant really complain. But my real dreams will be hard to achieve, but I do think they are possible.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
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We can spend so much of our lives always wanting more that we don't learn to appreciate the things that we have. Some types are terrible at this - they always have to be achieving more and more with an ever increasing bar to be happy. Our dreams can be surrounding us every day of our lives though. If we don't enjoy the process, we end up arriving at the destinations we've worked so long and hard for unfulfilled, wishing we'd done some things differently.

I have a feeling that the idea of dreams is just a part of the enculturation. It's not that it is bad, it's just that people should see how it works. The myth of the man who realized his dream is powerful story, of course. It is easy to make good movies about people who went through hell to make something out of themselves. But, I think it is quite probable that these are just the lucky ones. If you want to see this in real life, you don't find so many people who have realized their dream just by being persevering enough. They also know how to find alternative ways. It's not enough to just bang your head against the wall, no matter how sure you are that the thing is just behind the wall. You ever seen a plant go through concrete? That's the way. It just finds the cracks. It doesn't force it.

Ironically enough, I have sold my creature comforts for a dream I didn't know I had. It was never too clear to me what I wanted, and most of the time I just went along with life. Surprisingly this lead me to a place where I am in a real danger of becoming a sort of an outcast. I have closed the doors myself. I don't like the idea of working in an office everyday, I can't stand unfair treatment of people that is so common in any workplace, I don't see much use with having a lot of money, I see lot of the societys rules sick. I am at a point where the only open doors for me are the ones that require an enormous amount of patience, learning and self-transformation. I don't regret this, though, not yet. I do see that the people around me might see my way as idiotic wandering, but it has been fun trip so far, and I am really in a happier place than where I started from.

Actually, I just realised, this is not about dreams as such. I just wanted to live my life according to a certain set of principles. It is not a dream, in the same way. These principles are real for me, and at the moment I am living by them, but there are limits for a person with principles such as mine. There aren't many possible places for me to go where the society would "embrace" me. Only an artist can get away with the stuff I do and be accepted. I guess I'll have to face it that I will not be accepted. What's new about that?

You know, I would really sometimes want to be the kind of a person who would fit in and just get those creature comforts. A family might have been nice to have, a regular job, some house somewhere. But I just can't see the reality of it being comfortable, at all. I can't imagine myself without the need of making my principles a reality. If I was in that suburbia, I'd probably just snap and go crazy one day. I feel freaking handicapped because of what I wanted to have. It's such a limitation...

*bangs the head to the wall*
 

Arclight

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My dreams are not so grand.. Perhaps that is why they come true quite frequently :)
 

Orangey

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what do you do when you reach the point in your life when you realize that all of the things you really wanted to do when you grew up are very unlikely now... when you wonder if you sold out your goals for comfort. Do you give up? Do you still try? Do you try to find a compromise? Am I the only one who wonders if they've hit that fork in the road? :thinking:

I've never had "dreams" that were so specific as to have been set in stone in my mind over a long period of time. If one desired course of action fails or is not possible at a certain time, then I modify my desires. So basically, if I realize that my dreams will never come true, then I change my dreams.
 

cascadeco

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what do you do when you reach the point in your life when you realize that all of the things you really wanted to do when you grew up are very unlikely now... when you wonder if you sold out your goals for comfort. Do you give up? Do you still try? Do you try to find a compromise? Am I the only one who wonders if they've hit that fork in the road? :thinking:

I think that within reason, it's never too late. :) If you have the drive and ability to try to achieve some of them, or to change your life in a new direction, I think it can be done. I think people too easily cease being willing to take new forks in the road as they get older, and I think part of it is just a societal undercurrent that tends to discourage that or make it seem 'impossible' once you hit a certain point...I mean, this makes sense, as life for most gets more complicated with age, what with relationships and families, but again, if the opportunity/way is there... take it! (I know someone who ended up applying to and getting a really good medical Residency at age 39)

As for dreams... might sound weird, but I don't think I've ever had any. Really!! I think part of it was that I grew up in a non-dream-inspired/oriented-household, but just to give you an example -- I was never one who had the dream to do a lot of traveling once I was retired, because a) I knew there was the possibility that I might die before then, and boy would that suck, and b) I knew that traveling when I'm not in my prime wouldn't be terribly awesome anyway. So, for me, I try to 'live' any dreams that I have, in the Now - and try to actualize them in the Now. If there's something I want to incorporate into my life or work towards, I go for it. If there's something else which I realize isn't what I want my life to be about, I'll try to shift away from it and come up with something better. I think all of it's a continuous process.

(of course I say all of this is in reason - if you have a dream that will involve years of work before you'll be in a position to reach it, then obviously it's more of a long-term goal, but still I don't think it's too late. You're awfully young, whatever!! :yes:)
 

Mole

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The American Dream and Reality

The poet Auden taught us that poetry does nothing. However apprentice poets try to make their poetry come true, particulary their love poetry, but they find their dreams don't come true and poetry does nothing.

But of course dreams are not reality and so are not meant to come true.

And yet we continue to dream and write poetry, because poetry gives life its savour.

And when life loses its savour, we become depressed. And depression is the largest presenting symptom in doctors' surgeries, precipitationg a huge profitable pharmaceutical industry to treat depression.

So in the land of ideology with an ideological Constitution, where ideology is king, where ideology is the dream of three hundred million citizens, no wonder so many are depressed because their dream doesn't come true.

It is almost as though Disney Land isn't true, Santa isn't true, the Trinity a fevered dream, and Hollywood a dream factory.
 

Lark

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Well, I experience this a couple of times and probably will as time goes on, although I take massive comfort from the fact that while I may from time to time experience jealousy of my friends who are married, with kids, houses, lots of things which now and again I imagine constitute "a dream" or "the dream", if particular people had been involved, most of the time I'm very happy with how I am.

Single, working steadily, putting some of what I've learned and believe to be important into practice, not too overburdened with work, trying and succeeding to strike a balance even if it is only to secure the days off which might allow me the opportunity at least to feel like I'm really living (I tend to find that now, the experience of really living life fills the spaces in between other commitments).

For most things I never did I've plenty of consolations or reasons why its not a terrible loss to me really, for instance, I never became a soldier but then there were no wars worth fighting at the time, I never reached peak physical fitness and became a facsimile of any of my action heroes like Arnie or as good a martial artist as Bruce Lee but I can improve my fitness for my age (31yrs).

I'm never going to lead any revolution or reshape the world but I'm more and more aware of the flaws in the ideologies I once thought were great and how imperfect and necessarily so the world is and will be (at least it means the revolutions of the political or cultural tendencies I oppose wont work out or happen either).

I never joined the priesthood or a religious order but I'm increasingly aware that the church which I could have been most at home in no longer exists, if it ever did, and I could meet all sorts of people unlike myself and embracing religion for all sorts of reasons which are contrary to my own if I did pursue the religious calling.

In the main I've read Eric Fromm, who thinks disillusionment is a positive thing or can be turned to positive growth and development, and another book called the age of absurdity which suggest that consumerism and potential as a philosophical idea have created a burden of expectation. Analysing my situation like that allows me to come to terms with it better.

Sometimes I get annoyed that I'll likely not read all the books I own before I die, or I'll miss other opportunities in life if I spend the time doing so, but life goes on. If you dwell on it or think about it it can become truly absurd, for instance, consider the amount of times when, because you didnt buy a ticket, you've effectively passed on the dream of winning the lottery.
 

Quay

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what do you do when you reach the point in your life when you realize that all of the things you really wanted to do when you grew up are very unlikely now... when you wonder if you sold out your goals for comfort. Do you give up? Do you still try? Do you try to find a compromise? Am I the only one who wonders if they've hit that fork in the road? :thinking:

You know I've thought about this, but my life is so awesomely weird, I have no reason to believe that they won't come true regardless of what is going on in the present.

Have you ever had something in your life work out the way you want it to even though you had no expectation that it would?
 

Lark

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When I think about it my dream of growing up to be James Bond was a little unrealistic.
 

Rail Tracer

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One dream might not come true, but it doesn't mean other dreams can't/won't come true. Nor does not having a dream come true mean you can't make new ones.

So what if one of my dreams won't come true, I have other dreams that I like just as much.

A dream doesn't have to be something grand you know. :) It can be something as simple as losing/gaining weight, to living just a simple life, or being a firefighter. Take your pick of whatever dream you create. If things don't go well, pick another one until you find one that does come true.
 

Giggly

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If you enjoy comfort then comfort must be at least part of your goals.
 

Tamske

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what do you do when you reach the point in your life when you realize that all of the things you really wanted to do when you grew up are very unlikely now... when you wonder if you sold out your goals for comfort. Do you give up? Do you still try? Do you try to find a compromise? Am I the only one who wonders if they've hit that fork in the road? :thinking:

I'm still trying to make my dream come true. My dreams have become more specific along the way from childhood to adulthood. As a child, I didn't want more than use my time imagining things and inventing stories. I never realized you could "become" a writer so I didn't work towards that goal. I also didn't want to think about being an adult (with work and responsibilities and being boring) as long as I wasn't one.
Now I want to write my stories down and make money with them, because this would allow me to allot MORE of my time imagining things and inventing stories.
I've also had this dream of being a scientist and an inventor. This has been scratched, as I'm not really cut for lonely (E), deadline-less (P - I need external pressure) research work. But I can still be a science teacher, can't I?
 
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