In the recent weeks I have had a hard time accepting where I am in my life. 

I’m not doing exactly what I want to do. I don’t love my job, and I feel like I am abandoning my dreams. 

Everything seems to be passing me by and time feels like it is flying, but is it really?

I have always had a plan. I knew when I wanted to get married, how many kids I wanted, where I wanted to work, what I wanted to wear to work, and so on. But always wanting a plan required that I always look at the future, and being so focused on the future I began loosing sight of the present.

Dreams are a necessity and play a instrumental role in who we are,  but if our dreams aren’t healthy then many times we will find ourselves frustrated, burnt out, tired, and ready to quit. In order to nourish our dreams we need an equal dose of the future and the present. We need to be reminded that we are working in the present in order to obtain the future.

Sometimes what we see in the present makes our dreams for the future look impossible. We start to think we will never achieve them, and if we do it will be on our death bed. 

Our perspective is that we want our dreams and we want them now. However, dreams require work and commitment. In many cases they require a certain amount of blood, sweat and tears. 

Despite the fact that those things cannot be avoided we try to take the easy way, and in doing that we shortcut our dreams. When we shortcut our dreams we leave them malnourished. They are still our dreams, but we no longer see how in working in the present we are working towards our future, which are those dreams.

Dreaming requires imagination, and a healthy imagination requires hope. In our lives when we find that hope and imagination we find a spark. It is a spark that ignites passion, which in turn fuels motivation, and it is through that motivation that we are able to overcome insurmountable odds to achieve our dreams. 

There is no mountain high or valley low, no person or thing that can keep us from our dreams. Our greatest adversary is ourselves.

While we struggle to find that hope and imagination, it is important for us to take advantage of the opportunities that we are given. We fail to see these opportunities when we lose sight of the present in looking at the future. 

Dreams take hard work, dedication, commitment, and sacrifice. They are things that we cannot achieve overnight, but many times require patience. Taking advantage of opportunities that we are given will encourage and energize us as we work towards our dreams. Sometimes those opportunities are like bread crumbs. They lead us to accomplish dreams that we never knew we had.