Awakening to your dream

Daydream your life into being. Do what you love.  While today you might only be a cub, who knows who you could be tomorrow.  

There is a beautiful statement, almost surprising, in the Gospel of Thomas in which Jesus states, "Don't do what you hate."

I was surprised when I first read that. I wondered, is everyone doing what they love or what they don't love, or worse, what they hate?  How much do you love what you're doing?  If you are thinking, talking about and doing what you don't love, obviously, you're not thinking about, talking about or doing what you love.  And, if you're not doing what you love, why not? Why aren't you at least thinking about it? 

As you analyze that question, the answer may be buried in your distant past.  Something in your early life may have stopped you in your tracks.  When we're children we need a lot of support, encouragement and empowering from the adults in our life. If the significant adult in your life lets you down, even if you didn't realize it at the time, your dream goes down the drain because you weren't able to see it through. 

Sometimes we need our parents to take us by the hand and help us walk through the finish line on an idea. Unfortunately, sometimes parents don't do that and when we don't ever see the other side of the finish line, something in us teaches us that we won't ever see success. So, right then, in our childhood disappointment, we accept the sad lesson that we won't see success, and naturally as children we think it's our fault.  We feel guilty, vaguely unaware of why.

But, today, in the bright sunlight of awareness we need to find, recover and finish our dream. We may need to go back and find that moment where we hung up on ourselves and our dreams, and we have to give ourselves the support and encouragement, even empowerment, we never received.

Back then, in our unacknowledged disappointment, we typically felt - and were - victims.  We had two choices back then.  Either we accept our role as victims, even honor it, make it a noble quality, and resolve to become professional martyrs, OR, we choose to stand and fight, figure out what we need and go for it.  Which choice were we taught to make? Which choice were we able to make?

There is a whole subculture in our culture of those who have embraced martyrdom, claiming it is more noble if we slave away at a job we don't love.  Have we become puppets without questioning it? Do we somehow think we don't deserve to be doing what we love?  Or, even worse, could it be deep down we don't think we have the skills or ability to do what we love, or even deeper down at rock bottom, is it possible we don't know what we love.

I think the clue is in that early childhood experience in which we were disempowered or let down by a significant adult in our life who failed us, and taught us to fail ourselves. That, in my humble opinion, was the path to codependence, which is professionally going nowhere. Codependents are rather selflessly supporting those who are. 

There are so many well-meaning, good, kind, loving and generous-to-a-fault people, who have somehow along the way come to believe that the "more blessed to give than receive" idea means they should not give to themselves and that in giving their time and talent in service to another, they are more Christ-like.  

So, it is to those folks, I invite to read again, "Don't do what you hate. Go back in time, find that moment in time when you were derailed and get back up on the horse."

Or, to frame it more positively.  Do what you love. It seems it's a holy mandate.

Think about what you love, even if you have to begin a breadcrumb trail to it.  Day dream, pipe dream, follow every rainbow, and wonder what this or that would be like, follow every thought, every single creative thought to some kind of expression, and spend a moment there, at least thinking about it, wondering about it.  

Then, ask yourself why can't you do it more often?  What would it take to do it?  How might your life be different? Do you like that difference?  Does it resonate with something you once dreamed of as a child?  You know.  Doodle a bit on a blank piece of paper the next time you're on a long hold with Comcast, or while you're in a line at the bank.  Get in the habit of day dreaming, thinking outside the box. Invite the Divine to whisper your heart's desire into your heart. 

Then, just do it, because someone out there will discover a way to heal our global climate situation, find a realistic energy alternative, a cure for cancer, a new political/economic paradigm, clean water and food for the children everywhere, but especially in Africa, a way to save the animals threatened by extinction due to  global warming, and the many great issues and concerns of our times.  

Recently, a friend said if she were younger she'd go back to school and study interior design. She said she loved it. Instead she continues to work in a going nowhere office job. I suggested she throw away the idea that she was too old and reach out for her dream to do interior design because it gave her joy.  She just shook her head and said she was too old. Rather than change her course, she opted to wait out her life doing what she didn't love.  She tossed in her chips. 

What's too old?  Is 80, 90, 100 too old?  One of the runners in the Oregon marathon was over 80 years old. My friend is only in her 50s. Sometimes it takes a life time to peal off the heavy layers of responsibilities we load ourselves down with to honestly own up to what we love. 

I think what we love is what keeps us up all night creating, doing the things that seem like a minute has passed but it was hours. Wouldn't the world be filled with passion, more empowered, solution-based, optimistic, joy?  Wouldn't everything be different?  

And, I can't help asking, "if everyone did what they loved, then, who would want to waste their time making war, when they could be doing what makes them feel alive and empowered?"