Gray

What happens when the visions and dreams we hold get subsumed under an avalanche of reality?

There comes a time - seemingly often in my own life - where all that I wanted to do or intended to do or dreamed of doing gets crushed in the onslaught of the real world. I try and hold on pieces of it, or convince myself that it is only periodic and there a better time coming. But what happens when those, too, get blown away?

I bring to mind those books I have read where individuals pushed through to their dreams through a haze of disappointments and discouragements. I look at them, and then I look at myself, and I wonder "What if"?

But then I am brought down to earth by the life that I actually have, the responsibilities to which I am bound and the commitments which I have made. Suddenly achieving one's dreams seems far away when that achievement is won at any price.

The reality - although I hate to admit it - is that I am not a free agent in my own existence. I cannot do anything that I want to at any time. Instead, what I do is a careful balance of negotiation among the competing interests and responsibilities and individuals in my life.

Sound less motivational, doesn't it? Not "I am the Master of My Fate, I am the Captain of my Soul" but "I am the Negotiator of the Possible, I am the Keeper of Responsibilities". Hardly the thing to sell as a self-motivational title.

Which is back to the crux of my problem. How, in the midst of things as they are, do I find the spark to keep on having something to work towards? How do I find the motivation to believe that something I actually want is possible, rather than accept the seeming fact that all that is possible is responsibilities and commitments?

How do I not lose what is left of my inner core in the reality of a life which seemingly consists only of "musts" and "have-to's"?