“Dreams and Survival Thinking”
Monday, May 17th, 2010Dreams and Survival Thinking usually don’t exist in the same space. Dreams can’t even exist in the same sentence hardly. Dreams are those wonderful wishes that you would love to come true some day. Living in Southern France for six months, getting to know people there, and painting wonderful watercolor landscapes are some of my favorite dreams.
Everything man creates or acquires begins in the form of desire, that desire is taken on the first lap of its journey, from the abstract to the concrete, into the workshop of the imagination, where plans for its transition are created and organized.
–Napoleon Hill
Survival thinking and being comes when we are having challenging times, like when we are out of money or out of a job. When there is not enough gas in the car to get to work or money to catch a bus, and all you can think about is not having enough money; most of us fall into survival thinking and being. The embers of our desire seem like cold ashes and there is nothing to take into our imagination workshop. Our world is cold, flat, and hard.
The thing about the survival state of being is that our thinking contracts to a very small world. We are living in a period when there is a lot of focus on the economy. Unemployment is higher, foreclosures are higher, and people are more conservative about spending money. What is the story you are telling yourself about the economy and your personal finances right now? Is it anything like, “I better keep my head down, or I might lose my job?” Or “jobs are really hard to find right now?”
Don’t these last two paragraphs just eclipse any thoughts about going to the San Juan Islands and visiting Friday Harbor this weekend for example? Chances are the “what is” (of what is happening with the economy and how it affects you personally) has shifted you more into survival thinking.
To be successful means a shift to a whole different perspective. We can’t be thinking positive thoughts, if we are consumed by the contraction of negative thoughts. We can’t be reaching for a goal, if we are scared and afraid to reach out.
One thing I realized is that I forget my dreams, when I contract into survival thinking. When we are too tired, when we are stressed about some personal issues, when we don’t have enough money, sometimes when we are not physically well, we condense into the “what is” of our life, and forget that there is a great deal more on which we can focus.
Thrive and be Successful
You have to have bigger horizons on which to focus, if you want to be successful, and thrive. This past week I found a notebook where I had been writing down my dreams, goals, desires for the future. The notebook began with a list of fun things, and then had gotten overrun with quotes. So I went to the Dollar Store and bought another small notebook that I can keep all the time, and when I remember one of my dreams, I capture it in my little notebook.
As I have been writing them down, I realized that there were several things I could do this week and this month that could give me a flavor for my dream of painting in southern France. I can drive over to Anacortes to Deception Park and have a paint out all day in in the exquisite landscapes there. If I wanted, I could take the ferry next week to Guemes Island and for $5.00 have paint out in the San Juan Islands. Both of those activities are very doable and very inexpensive, and wonderfully exotic. Both of these have been available to me for a while, and I had forgotten that opportunity, because when I get into survival, I forget about doing things which help me to thrive.
Dreams help us expand our horizon and remember there is more to our world than the current “what is.” Dreams help us imagine outcomes that we want. Dreams tantalize us to grow and expand. Dreams can help us hope and expect our dreams to come true. Imagining what it will feel like to have our dreams come true is an essential step towards success. Almost every person who has performed as an actor or musician, had dreams of standing on stage with a microphone and having everyone listen to them. Imagining paves the way to success. Dreams are the precursors to imagining. You have to have something to imagine. Those desires and dreams let us go a little soft inside and let go of the hardness that comes with scarcity and survival.
Next time we will talk about some strategies to help capture our dreams. Until then, know that your dreams of what may be are critical to making them come true. And if you are so inclined, click on some of the colored text in this blog, and it will take you to other articles that are related. Remember. You are so much more than what you seem right now!
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