‘Living the life of your dreams’ is a phrase we’re all familiar with. Typically, we all fall into one of four camps when it comes to this:
- People who are doing everything we can to live the life of our dreams
- People who don’t believe it’s possible to have the life of our dreams
- People who are living out someone else’s dreams for their life
- People who are drifting throughout life without a dream
I wanted to kick off this week by addressing those of us who have fallen into category three.
Probably by way of disclaimer, I should say that I am a big believer in the importance of living life interdependently. We need each other. I would even go so far as to say that it impossible to live the life of our dreams without others playing key and critical roles in our life.
All of us have people around us who have shaped and influenced us in ways that go further than we could ever hope to fully understand. This is good, normal, and healthy.
But.
But we must not ever let anyone else choose our dream for us. It is, after all, our life. No one else gets to live our life. No one else is in our shoes.
I am still always surprised by the number of people who are living out their parents dreams. They are living out a life that is based around their parents expections.
Don’t get me wrong. Parents having high expectations for their children is great. But it is very easy for that to become something that is unhealthy.
Parents are great. They play a pivotal role in our lives. And yet, naturally, they are very protective. They are above all concerned with our safety. And, as such, it is very easy for them to encourage us to choose careers and life paths that are ’safe’ over and above living a life that truly fulfils our potential.
And that leads us to a critical question. Do we want to live lives that are safe, or do we want to choose a path that leads to true fulfilment? Do we want to lives lives that maximise our talents and our passions or settle for playing out someone else’s ambitions for us?
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This is great, Sam! I think of my own life in this regard. I think there is a fine line between responsibility and living out other people’s dreams for you. We must be responsible for family and being above reproach… and it should be in line with what God has given us for our direction…. Sometimes that becomes pretty confusing…
Thanks, Evan. You’re right. Things aren’t always (often?!) black and white. Inevitably we make compromises here and there based on responsibilities and circumstances. And, of course, there are ‘bad’ dreams. If I have a dream for my life that, for example, means I neglect by wife and daughter, I don’t think that’s a good dream.
That said, we need to identify the dream that matches our talents and passions, weigh it up in light of our values, responsibilities, circumstances, etc, and then decide whether that’s the right dream to pursue.
If anyone is living my dreams please can they let me know.
Thanks