Following our dreams

This is a very tough decision that my family and I have faced this week. So is it all about priorities of the heart or priorities of the mind?

We’ve all heard the slogans and encouragements of following our dreams to true happiness but let’s face it, for most of us it is one of the most difficult challenges in our everyday lives.

Priorities of the mind

We all know these too well, paying the bills, financially looking after our families and so on. Most of us may end up taking jobs we don’t enjoy just to take care of our basic needs until our “one day” arrives.

We all know that day, “one day I’ll be able to…” fill in the blank. Let’s face facts, I’ve sat and stared at an assortment of calendars and I can promise I have never seen any with the day “one day” on them and for a lot of people “one day” still has not happened while they lie on their death beds.

So we do what makes us unhappy in the meantime causing depression and physical illness because we are not following our dreams. We, after all, have very important priorities such as food on the table, paying for schooling, mortgages, clothing, the latest Playstation and the big screen TV!

The bottom line when it comes down to priorities of the mind is that ultimately we don’t want to let anyone else down. We make ourselves unhappy so that we can be in a position where we can help the people we love follow their dreams and find true happiness. Our parents did it for us, their parents did it for them and now we’re doing it for the next generation.

What is the price we pay? We are unhappy and loose our hopes and dreams. What is the ultimate result? The next generation is more than likely to follow in our footsteps, giving up their dreams so that someone else can find true happiness. And so the cycle continues on and on because this is the example we are leading them by.

Priorities of the heart

True happiness; is it what it’s all cracked up to be? Of course it is, why else would we call it by such a name!

I’m not saying that financial and family obligations should be dropped altogether, they are important and have a place in our lives BUT they must not necessarily become our lives. You must live your life before you try and help someone else to live their life to the fullest.

Working towards our personal goals and dreams takes work, a lot of work. It may even seem so scary that it will be easier to choose the unhappy life. After all what’s the point of giving up safety in our lives and working our asses off with the possibility of failure hanging over our heads? Well for one the experience. If you do fail then at least you know what not to do when you try again and if you try then you get a taste of the possibility of your happiness in your near future, and once you have tasted something good would you want to stop? Have your cake and eat it!

Reaching your full potential and having the life of your dreams, isn’t that the example you want future generations to see?

There are many sources out there that help you to discover your dreams and work on them and so on but this is not the goal of this post. My goal is to help you consider what priorities you want to guide your thoughts and actions in your life.

I hope it has helped.