I am one of those (slightly annoying) people who figured out exactly what I wanted to do with my life when I was 10 years old â I was going to be a writer.Â
At 16, wrangled between anorexia and an abusive relationship, I knew that I would someday harness the energy in pain to create healing. At 20, in an attempt to move forward after the relationship, I began writing.
And yet last year, when I turned 30, I had two sad realizations.Â
The first was that even after a decade of consistent, obsessive, heart-centered work and pushing the goalpost a few times, I had still not fulfilled any of my Big Writer Dreams.Â
The second happened when I looked at my friendsâ rich lives and realized how different mine had been. Writing and creating had consumed all my hours, Iâd done little else in my twenties.
So I decided that for the next few years, I would largely pause creating. I hoped that in time, I could return to the craft with more clarity and better stories. Meanwhile, I would focus all my energy on living.
Ever since, Iâve been saving up, travelling, looking for the right therapist, making new friends, dating, and working on building some form of community around me. Things have been going well, for the most part.
But every now and then, thereâs a voice in my head â I call her my Ambitious Anna â that pops in with an urgent query:
âTell me again, why are we not writing?â
âWe did that for 10 years, remember?â I try. âNow we are taking a little break!â
âI think youâre escaping, deflecting, being a coward,â she says. âHow many times do I have to tell you that itâs toughest right before you make it? Are you seriously going to give up at this point, after 10 years?!â
Now see, I could explain myself further to AA, but she wonât listen to me. Her role is to keep my ambition alight and she does a great job of it. Mine is to know when to pay her heed and when to drown her out before she calls in Jealous Jupiter, Triggered Tintin, Blue Belle, and Depressed Daphne, who are all far less fun than their names sound!
Tell me, do you have your own version of my Ambitious Anna too? That voice cawing on about your lifeâs big dreams and your responsibility towards them?
While I love what that voice can help us accomplish, I wonât deny that it can also show up in some contorted ways, berating, bellowing, bludgeoning, doing everything possible to grab our attention. It wonât allow us to pause when we desperately need to. It can guilt us for not actively working on something we arenât yet ready for.
And lately, this has been on my mind because Iâve understood that having big dreams means youâve got to strap in for life. While there will be intense stretches of work work work, you also have to find ways to pause, restructure, and balance its weight lest you go tumbling down, dreams and everything.
I wonât pretend that Iâve mastered this balancing act. But over the years, there are a few interesting things I've figured out that I'd like to share with you.
1. Ambition alone cannot carry our dreams.
Ever felt your dream get heavy to lug around? Thatâs probably because youâve only got ambition holding it up at that moment. Without purpose, joy, and love sharing the load, ambition is a lot like ego. Itâs brittle but proud, makes us bitter and stubborn. Itâs impossible to get to the summit this way without breaking our spirit along the sojourn.Â
Instead, we could wait for the rest of the gang to align and come around. Our duty is to trust that when the time is right, they will all show up and weâll make that journey the way we are supposed to.Â
2. The parts that hurt aren't the dream. Theyâre us.Â
I know that it can sometimes feel like your dreams have developed flesh-piercing spikes, ones that rip into you when you so much as breathe. But that isnât the dream, thatâs you.
Itâs the parts of you that have grown confused, tired, and scared. The parts that are grieving, hopeless, restless. They rally around the dream, drawn by its light, wishing it will be the solution. But it isnât, and conflating the two will only be doubly painful.
You must find ways to separate those parts from your dreams â sit with them, speak to them, understand them.
"What happens if Iâll never be an XYZ?â might actually be âWill I turn into my parents?â or âHow will I be worthy enough to be loved?â (Spoiler alert: You already are!). Remember, our dreams donât hurt, we do. And thank God, because for almost all the ways we hurt, we can heal too.
3. Believe in abundance over scarcity.
Itâs tough to see others flourish in their dreams when our paths are nowhere near trodden. This discomfort is natural. But if you can accept it, the antidote is a stupidly simple one too â Abundance over scarcity.Â
Cheryl Strayed defines this as â âthe idea that there is enough for all of us, that success will manifest itself in different ways for different sorts of artists, that keeping the faith is more important than cashing the check, that being genuinely happy for someone else who got something you hope to get makes you genuinely happier too.âÂ
When you see others succeed, you donât have to do 10 things ASAP to speed up on your track or jump through 89463 mental hoops to find the root cause of your problem. All you have to do is believe in abundance and join the joy. And please, letâs promise that we will always join the joy.Â
4. Romanticize, romanticize!
Letâs get real, waiting on a dream is hard, particularly when the in-betweens are filled with so much that is dreadfully mundane. But if the whole picture was infused with a heady shot of main character energy, it changes the scene a bit, noe? The ordinary is now pertinent healing space, room we get to know the characters, that hard-earned calm arc weâve been waiting for.
And like this, I hope you can fall in love with the story of your journey. Because whether you can see it or not, all of this is the story of how you get to your biggest, brightest dreams.
Youâll get there, I know you will.
đ
Love,
Soumya
Reflection Prompts âïž
~ Think of your biggest dream/s. Note them down. Name 10 inner voices that usually converse with each dream (think of my Ambitious Anna). Which ones have gotten louder? Which do you need to hear more from?
~ If the dreams hurts, list down every question/thought around it that makes you wince. Follow each up with a âSo what?â Answer that.
~ If this were a movie of you and your dreams, which part of the movie would you be in? What does this part add to the story? What's your favourite thing about this part?
Recommended Read đ
When speaking of jealously or envy, Iâm always team Your Feelings Are Valid, encouraging everyone to dig deeper and unearth the source of concern. But when it comes to comparing dreams and accomplishments, I've learnt that it's just not that deep. I hold this Dear Sugar letter close to keep reminding myself that.
Jam đ”
For those of us still waiting in line.Â
Thank you for reading! đ
This email is Part 2 of a 3-part series I am doing on dreams. If you enjoyed it, you can read the previous email here. Do subscribe and stay tuned for the last one!
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