“We are such things as dreams are made on,” Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest. I’ve been considering this famous line of poetry in recent weeks. Specifically, I’ve been pondering the fine line between working to achieve plausible dreams and living in a dream world. Let’s face it: we all have dreams that we have not achieved and probably never will. My personal dreams have been plentiful and varied as whims and obsessions have come and gone throughout the years. As a child, I dreamed of becoming a marine biologist. I was fascinated with marine life and all things connected with the ocean. Frequent trips to the library found me checking out Nancy Drew mysteries along with books on fish, sharks, coral reefs, and sunken ships. Television specials on the Titanic, Lusitania, and Bismark were avidly watched and recorded, my personal favorite being a 3-hour A & E Titanic special that I would watch all in one sitting until the tape broke. I anxiously awaited the day when I would learn to scuba dive. I dreamed of diving on wrecks, swimming with sharks, and identifying new species of marine life. I’ll never forget the day when I learned that marine biology required proficiency in math & science, two subjects I did not excel in. It was with many tears that I laid aside that dream, due to my belief that I could never do well enough in either of those subjects to make it through the college classes required. How would life have been different if I had taken that discovery as a challenge rather than as defeat and the death of a dream? Would I have achieved it?
There were other childhood dreams, though none as all-consuming as my passion for all things nautical. One fleeting dream was to become the first professional women’s baseball player until I discovered I was terrified of the baseball after being hit with it on several occasions. I was still overjoyed the Christmas my Dad bought me a bat, ball, and glove and hid them in a corner a la “ A Christmas Story.” We went to several Richmond Braves games, and I always brought my glove in the event of a ball being hit into the stands. The end of my baseball dream occurred at summer camp when I was nine or ten, and I humiliated myself by slipping and falling in-between home and first base after hitting a line drive. I have not been at bat since. Would I have made it? Could I have been a pioneer athlete and the source for the next “Rookie of the Year” or “Field of Dreams” movie?
As adulthood has blossomed, dreams have come and gone: being in a band or making it big as a singer a la American Idol, opening my own restaurant and experimenting with recipes, going into interior decorating, being “that teacher” who made a lasting difference in the lives of students, or becoming a college professor. Gradually, the realization has come upon me that these dreams are more than likely destined to remain just those: dreams. The only band I will be in will be when Jon & I play Rock Band, my recipes will be limited to my humble home kitchen, my interior decorating experimentation will have to wait till I own and no longer rent my home, and my teaching skills will more than likely be put to use only when teaching my own children. It is beginning to feel like only a happy, chosen few get to experience the joy of seeing big dreams fulfilled.
Which leads me back to my original query: where is that fine line between working towards lifelong dreams and living in a dream world of regret and “what ifs”? After all, the very word “dream” denotes something that is intangible. If it were tangible, it would be a reality. Yet from childhood on we are encouraged to dream of what could be. Pessimists might say we are being set up for failure. Optimists might say we are being spurred on to bigger and better things. From my personal experience, here is the bottom line:
Life does not turn out the way we’d plan or the way we’d like. Big shock, right? Our dreams and cold reality both play a part in making us who we are. Without dreams, we become robots carrying out the mechanical duties of day-to-day life. Without reality, we would probably come dangerously close to getting nothing accomplished due to having our heads in the clouds all the time. The dreams we are able to carry out can make this life more enjoyable for those we are able to bless along the way. The intangible dreams remain the ones we think about in those wee small hours of the morning in between awake and asleep. I still watch my Titanic specials and “Underwater Universe” on the Discovery Channel. I would still love to one day learn to scuba dive, though I no longer expect it to be part of my job description. I hope to one day play catch with my children in the backyard and cheer at their games, professional or otherwise. I will continue to try the new recipes, plan ways of decorating my home, and gather educational materials for a continuation of my teaching career, whether it be in a classroom or at the kitchen table.
The most important part, I have found, is not to dwell on “what might have been.” Some dreams simply won’t be realized in this lifetime. That does not mean I should be depressed or melancholy and be of no earthly good. I am quite sure that there will be a pickup baseball game on an immaculately-kept diamond in Heaven. I will no longer have to fear getting smacked with the ball, and maybe in Heaven, all homeruns are grand slams. Scuba diving in Heaven won’t require a breathing apparatus or decompression, so I’ll be able to dive to my heart’s content. Shakespeare was right: we are such things as dreams are made on. We simply need to define the dreams; the dreams do not define us. Living in the past and living for dreams that will not be realized will not benefit us or those around us. We simply do the best that we can with what we are given in the time that we have.
There were other childhood dreams, though none as all-consuming as my passion for all things nautical. One fleeting dream was to become the first professional women’s baseball player until I discovered I was terrified of the baseball after being hit with it on several occasions. I was still overjoyed the Christmas my Dad bought me a bat, ball, and glove and hid them in a corner a la “ A Christmas Story.” We went to several Richmond Braves games, and I always brought my glove in the event of a ball being hit into the stands. The end of my baseball dream occurred at summer camp when I was nine or ten, and I humiliated myself by slipping and falling in-between home and first base after hitting a line drive. I have not been at bat since. Would I have made it? Could I have been a pioneer athlete and the source for the next “Rookie of the Year” or “Field of Dreams” movie?
As adulthood has blossomed, dreams have come and gone: being in a band or making it big as a singer a la American Idol, opening my own restaurant and experimenting with recipes, going into interior decorating, being “that teacher” who made a lasting difference in the lives of students, or becoming a college professor. Gradually, the realization has come upon me that these dreams are more than likely destined to remain just those: dreams. The only band I will be in will be when Jon & I play Rock Band, my recipes will be limited to my humble home kitchen, my interior decorating experimentation will have to wait till I own and no longer rent my home, and my teaching skills will more than likely be put to use only when teaching my own children. It is beginning to feel like only a happy, chosen few get to experience the joy of seeing big dreams fulfilled.
Which leads me back to my original query: where is that fine line between working towards lifelong dreams and living in a dream world of regret and “what ifs”? After all, the very word “dream” denotes something that is intangible. If it were tangible, it would be a reality. Yet from childhood on we are encouraged to dream of what could be. Pessimists might say we are being set up for failure. Optimists might say we are being spurred on to bigger and better things. From my personal experience, here is the bottom line:
Life does not turn out the way we’d plan or the way we’d like. Big shock, right? Our dreams and cold reality both play a part in making us who we are. Without dreams, we become robots carrying out the mechanical duties of day-to-day life. Without reality, we would probably come dangerously close to getting nothing accomplished due to having our heads in the clouds all the time. The dreams we are able to carry out can make this life more enjoyable for those we are able to bless along the way. The intangible dreams remain the ones we think about in those wee small hours of the morning in between awake and asleep. I still watch my Titanic specials and “Underwater Universe” on the Discovery Channel. I would still love to one day learn to scuba dive, though I no longer expect it to be part of my job description. I hope to one day play catch with my children in the backyard and cheer at their games, professional or otherwise. I will continue to try the new recipes, plan ways of decorating my home, and gather educational materials for a continuation of my teaching career, whether it be in a classroom or at the kitchen table.
The most important part, I have found, is not to dwell on “what might have been.” Some dreams simply won’t be realized in this lifetime. That does not mean I should be depressed or melancholy and be of no earthly good. I am quite sure that there will be a pickup baseball game on an immaculately-kept diamond in Heaven. I will no longer have to fear getting smacked with the ball, and maybe in Heaven, all homeruns are grand slams. Scuba diving in Heaven won’t require a breathing apparatus or decompression, so I’ll be able to dive to my heart’s content. Shakespeare was right: we are such things as dreams are made on. We simply need to define the dreams; the dreams do not define us. Living in the past and living for dreams that will not be realized will not benefit us or those around us. We simply do the best that we can with what we are given in the time that we have.
