Hopes And Dreams

Positive affirmation for the day — day 11 — Keep Your Dream Alive

This is part of a daily series about positive affirmations and how they can benefit our lives.

Affirmation of the day:

“I don’t have to give up my hopes and dreams”

Explanation

When we are young we often have dreams, sometimes unrealistic ones, about what we want from life. It is surprising how many children, from all parts of the world, want to be a doctor, a top footballer, or an astronaut! For politicians and activists, the dream may be a better world.

For those of us on Medium, the dream may be to be a successful writer. Of course, sometimes dreams can be unreaslistic or unachievable, but it is vitally important to hold onto our dreams throughout life, and not sacrifice them all in a soul-destroying day job or for other members of our family.

Of course, if we have responsibilities to others, we sometimes have to put them on hold, or squeeze space for a hobby around these responsibilities. However, hold on to your dreams. They are what make it worth getting up in the morning, and can help drive us on to achieve them. Sometimes we can only follow our dreams later in life, but never give up on them.

The Alchemist

One of the most-quoted books on the theme of following our dreams is “The Alchemist”, by Paulo Coelho. This is outwardly a simple fable of an Andalusian shepherd boy who dreams of travelling the world in search of treasure. However, behind the simple story, there are many lessons for life. The main one is about finding and following your passion in life. The following parable, versions of which may be found in many cultures, is re-told by Coelho, and emphasises the futility of always chasing more money:

“There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village. As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish. The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, ‘How long does it take you to catch so many fish?’ The fisherman replied, ’Oh, just a short while.’ ‘Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?’ The businessman was astonished. ‘This is enough to feed my whole family,’ the fisherman said. The businessman then asked, ‘So, what do you do for the rest of the day?’ The fisherman replied, ‘Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.’”

“The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman: ‘I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.’”

“The fisherman continues, ‘And after that?’ The businessman laughs heartily, ‘After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.’ The fisherman asks, ‘And after that?’ The businessman says, ‘After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!’ The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?’”

Coelho makes reference throughout the book to the “Soul of the World”, and although not religious in the traditional sense, it is a very spiritual book, taking a pantheist approach, of seeing that of God in everyone and everything, the concept that everything has a soul, including apparently inanimate objects like rocks and water. It also contains the inspiring but not always accurate advice that,

“…..when you really want something to happen, the whole universe will conspire so that your wish comes true”.

For writers on Medium, this fable about following our dream can motivate us to follow an aspiration to be a successful writer, as covered in this article:

Example on Medium

For an examples of writer are are turning their dreams into a reality via Medium, I can think of at least two examples. One is Eve Arnold, who promotes her work as “The Part-Time Creator Club”, and is building a successful career alongside a day-job, by squeezing in time for writing, setting her alarm early to make the time.

Another is Jason Provencio who also writes as The Professor of Medium. Jason quit the day job a couple of years ago, after working in real estate and as a carpet cleaner, and is making a success out of prolific blogging on the platform.

So it can be done. For further reading on following your dream, and how to change your life for the better, this article reviews some of the best books out there:

I hope you found this affirmation useful and do share any of your own that you find helpful in the comments.

For more information on the power of positive affirmations:

Day 1 tip: Strong and capable

Day 2 tip: An opportunity to grow

Day 3 tip: Building resilience

Day 4 tip: Being human

Day 5 tip: Setting boundaries

Day 6 — Feeling good

Day 7 — Being worthy

Day 8: Making a new start — the past does not dictate the future

Day 9: Forgiveness

Day 10 — Valuing ourselves