Of optimism and dreams recycling

Conquer the world

Aren’t there days when you wake up and want to conquer the world?

Those are the best days. When you feel unstoppable. When you feel that you will achieve anything you go for. And it will be a complete success.

It is in those moments when you have to make a decision and go for it all.

The chances of success (or failure) are, from my point of view, tightly coupled to the optimism you face the situations with.

Everything is in your head.

If you believe you are a superhero, you will act as such. It is all about the approach.

About perspective. That’s what it is about. Perspective.

About courage. That’s what it is about. Courage.

About optimism. That’s what it is about. Optimism.

The day-to-day obstacles are always going to be there and you shouldn’t make a big drama. In fact, in a retrospective exercise a posteriori, those obstacles that you find on the way are the ones that will determine the level of greatness of your achievements. If the task that you undertake is a bed of roses, you will likely accomplish average results.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that you must suffer unconditionally to achieve big goals. But rather, that the extra effort that involves overcoming difficulties will grant additional value to your achievements.

Why not dreaming? Why, as we grow up, do those childhood dreams become blurry? Who pierces the dream-box? Who teaches us to amend that box full of holes? What transcendental events mark the future of our dreams?

Surely, these questions have crossed your mind. And, if they haven’t appeared in your mind before, I leave them on the table for you to find out the answer by yourself. The rest of this post will be about how I understand the answers to the questions.

I honestly believe that, despite the age, you should never stop chasing everything that made you smile when you were knee-high to a grasshopper.

Where is the dream-smasher machine?

Stop for a minute and think.

Properly.

Take that minute, while you think that the dream-smasher machine is nothing but a ruse that exists only and exclusively in your head. That you are the sole responsible of letting those dreams fade away, whatever the external or personal circumstances may affect them.

Replace “smasher“ with “recycler“. What would you say if I tried to convince you that the dream-smasher machine is, in fact, the dream-recycler machine?

Let me explain myself.

We live lives full of random events. And I am not talking about big events. But rather about something so simple as doing groceries, paying attention to someone else’s conversation in the train or waiting in the queue of the lottery store.

Every day, we are exposed to hundreds of different situations. Fortunately, as rational beings, we are given the chance to exchange points of view and see things differently as the rest of the world.

It may be the case that, in one of those moments, we see “things through” and realize that what we think is not right. And that what we have had as a universal truth or dogma is, in reality, just a point of view.

Exactly.

It is just your point of view.

Give yourself the benefit of the doubt. Open your mind and leave room to the possibility that your initial thought can be modified.

Recycled.

And the change will begin there. With trivialities of daily life.

However, allow me to call that change, development.

And call that development, evolution. But not evolution in the Darwinian sense. Rather cognitive evolution. Intelectual development. Change of mentality.

Those changes, developments and/or evolutions must be part of your life on a regular basis. In fact, they can go so deep, that they can tear apart our original dreams. But not tear them apart and make them disappear. On the contrary, use the fragments as the raw material to transform one dream into another.

The dream-recycler machine may sound like an entelechy that comes out of thin air. But so does the dream-smasher machine. The difference between them is that the latter has been sold better.

The key resides in what we want to believe. In the emotional approach we want to face life with.

About optimism. That’s what it is about. Optimism.