Dream Killers

You know, you really have to be careful who you share your dreams with...

I consider myself a pretty determined cookie.  When I set my mind on something, a goal, I like to fully envision it first then write down the necessary steps to achieve it.  I abhor the thought of starting something and then not seeing it through; from the small to the more grandiose, I pride myself on tilling my fertile field of dreams until I reap a harvest.  I'm not easily shook nor swayed, either, and am generally impervious to discouraging forces, especially those of the two-footed nature... or ones I like to call "dream killers".  You know who they are: people who love to curb your enthusiasm for certain dreams and goals (and the pursuit thereof) by shooting them down. 

"Well, how are you gonna do that?"  "Ooh, I don't see you doing that!"  "Why are you gonna do THAT?"  "Hmph!  I wouldn't do THAT if I were you!"  "That's not gonna work."  "Now, that just sounds dumb."

Inflated by a false sense of privilege and a distorted sense of duty, dream killers always seem to want to attack your dreams by destroying it at the very root: your purpose.  If they can confuse you and keep you from confirming the "why" of it all (even to yourself), it's really hard to gain traction to pursue the "what".  But your purpose is connected to and fueled by your passion, which makes up the engine that drives your dream.  They know this, too, which is why they also like to throw fear into the mix.  If they can keep the passion pistons in your dream's engine from pumping by clogging them up with fear then it will seize up, keeping you at a standstill and kill the momentum towards fulfilling your purpose.

"No one's ever done THAT before!"  "So and so tried that once, but they never succeeded.  What makes you think YOU will?"  "Maybe you should just play it safe and get a regular job like the rest of us."  "What if you fail?  What will you do then?"

Experience, therefore, has taught me to play my dream cards close to my chest, intimating only via general proclamations the progress of some of my plans while never revealing the full blueprint.  However, even these guarded precautions were not enough to keep me from the middle of someone's verbal cross-hairs recently.  It was a friend-of-a-friend that I haven't spoken to in years who, without the buffer of any type of pleasantries, felt privileged enough to immediately take aim and rattle off a litany of judgements at me based on a simple affirmation I posted on social media.  I mean, I didn't even attempt to have a real conversation with this person because they were so consumed with trying to knock me off my square based off of ASSUMPTIONS that I chose not to engage them.

"Why haven't you achieved such and such yet?"  "Why are you taking so long to pursue such and such?"  "Do you even want such and such?"  "If not, then why not?"  "Everyone else is doing such and such.  Why aren't you?" 

You know, I love how people always have something to say about your life and how you should live it, especially the ones that don't even know all the details of what's going on behind your life's curtain.  They just love to assume and make rash judgements.  And whatever they don't know, they just fill in the blanks with their own faulty assessments.  The timing for my life is NOT your timing; it's solely my own.  And I have my own pace by which I'm living my life and owe no explanation to anyone.  My thing is, if you think I'm doing something so wrong, so out of whack or off track then why not pray for me to get back on track?  Send some positivity my way instead of all the harsh criticism.  And stop comparing my life to yours.  Trust me, I love being me and doing me all day long and wouldn't have it any other way.

"You're not smart/tall/skinny enough."  "You're too fat/short/OLD to do that!"  "If you haven't made it by now then you probably never will."  

So I wanted to give you guys the heads up.  Dream killers are out in full force and are on the prowl, ready to strangle the ideas/dreams/visions of those who are not properly armed with the right amount of fortitude and ambition.  Guard your dreams as if they are the most precious things on earth... because they are!  You do not need to share every little detail with everyone who asks.  Keep a select few on a need-to-know basis, and most DON'T need to know!  Labor Day is coming up and I am here to tell you that that's exactly what I'll be doing in lieu of hanging out and partying.  After encountering the flood of negativity from my most recent DK, I will be laboring double time to get the plans I've been yammering about for the past few months more fleshed out.  I've got things I wanna do, both big and small, and I'll be damned if I let some errant dream killer swoop in and sabotage me!  Nope!  Uh-uh!  Ain't nobody got no time for that!