Exhilarating, but terrifying; exciting, but exhausting — These are the words we use to describe the journey of chasing our dreams.
As children, we loved dreaming of what we would want to be when we grow up. We believed that we could be anything that we wanted to be, and we couldn’t wait until we were adults, believing that, by then, we would get all the freedom we needed to take hold of those dreams.
But, as we mature, we began to lose this sense of childlike wonder. We get hit by some hard truths about life and lose hope in the things that once seemed easy and possible. Once we decided to take that huge leap of faith towards our dreams, we discovered along the way that chasing dreams is not an easy task. Our calendars started to look differently as our priorities shift. We immediately get swamped in a sea full of deadlines, goals, to-do lists, and to-think-about lists.
Oftentimes, when we lose ourselves in the chaos, we lose our sense of gratitude, too. We try to finish one task after the other, forgetting to enjoy the view. We just want to “get things done”, and miss the beauty of the journey.
As we grow older, we forget the fun in chasing our dreams.
One of the biggest lessons we can learn from little children is that joy can be found anywhere and everywhere, we only need to believe that it’s there. It’s true that we would have to go through the mundane in order to reach the top. That if we don’t work hard, we wouldn’t be able to catch those dreams. But, we do have a choice in how we set our heart’s posture along the journey — we can always choose to put our comfy shoes on, and march onwards with a joyful heart.
To have joy, we simply must fill ourselves with gratitude. Gratitude makes us look at things differently. When our hearts are in a posture of gratitude, we will be able to see the bright side in any dark situation. It fills our eyes with wonder, the childlike wonder that we once had.
Without joy, chasing dreams will only feel like another job that we have to show up to every Monday, or another obligation to fulfil. But, with a teaspoon of wonder and a sprinkle of gratitude, who knows what kind of magical fingerprint we could leave in this big wide world of ours.
Cheers,
Axioo
