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The Cost of Dreams
Dreaming is only free if you are dreaming about going nowhere. Why?
In the book The Code of the Extraordinary mind, Vishen lakhiani proposes a foundation for creating a vision for your future, and he says…
“Every extraordinary mind I’ve ever met, dreams boldly and unapologetically.”
Bold and unapologetically calls for action.
BODY
the evolutionary journey that granted us the ability to dream, to envision futures beyond our immediate grasp, also burdened us with the knowledge of those future costs.
As Alfred North Whitehead observed:
“The purpose of thinking is to let the ideas die instead of us dying.”
We are bipedal beings, meaning we stand on our 2 feet with our bodies standing up straight, allowing us to see further away, expanding our brain’s capacity to imagine what lies beyond.
This capacity brought the discovery of the future and its shadow, which is the realization of mortality.
One one hand we dream about a future where we are more, do more, and have more.
One the other, we fear a future where we perish.
Understanding those potential futures can be like staring into the eyes of Medusa, our ideal selves gazing back at us, judging.
This judgment can petrify, freezing us in fear and anxiety, a prey response to the perceived danger of not achieving our aspirations.
The antidote to that petrification is progress.
By moving forward, by consistently striving toward our goals, we break Medusa’s gaze.
That’s why dreaming is not free.
Each dream, each vision of a future where we are more, do more, or have more, demands action.
That’s what boldly and unapologetically means.
It calls for the consistent effort to make those dreams a reality.
This life is the price you have to pay for the new life you want.
The Handful Plentiful
But obviously, this is easier said than done. But you have to ask yourself why.
If a plentiful success is in our dreams, why don’t everybody moves in that direction?
Why do most of us fall short?
Because to go from a good place to a better one, you have to go to a worse place first.
The fear of that transition is what keeps most people where they are.
We tend to think:
“Here is not as bad as the place between here and my dreams.”
If that makes sense to you, you must replace that fear for this essential truth:
“A good life is the worst enemy of an exceptional one”
Comfort is a lie.
That is the principle of the “handful plentiful.”
The idea goes like this:
100% of people say they will do something because we’re always doing that, aren’t we?
But let’s say only half of those people actually start doing something. That’s 50%.
From those 50%, only 30% will do it for a month.
From those 30%, only 10% will do it for 6 months.
From those 10%, only 1% will do it for a year.
From that 1% only a handful of people will do it for 2 years.
Life rewards plentiful that handful.
The Room of a Thousand Doors
But let’s say you want to be part of that handful.
What should you do? How to start? Where to go?
These are pointless and useless questions. Why? Because they are directional questions.
They are an attempt to get it right. But you won’t get it right.
The handful plentiful principle doesn’t say anything about doing what’s right or hitting the target.
It talks only about persistence and consistency.
There is a reason for that.
And the reason is…
Success is behind a room of a thousand doors.
You won’t achieve success by magically discovering the one door leading to your dream.
But by discovering the 999 doors that won’t, one by one.
From Zero to One.
So what should you do to turn your dreams into reality if you’re willing to do what it takes to uncover the 999 wrong doors?
Think this way:
If you multiply any number by zero, the result is zero.
But if you multiply any number by one, the result is that number.
Ten times zero is zero, but ten times one is ten and one million times one is one million.
What does that mean?
It means that the difference between zero and one is the same difference between zero and the infinite.
That makes your first step, the most powerful and meaningful steps you will ever give.
It doesn’t matter the direction of the step. What matters is the step.
Walking a thousand miles in the wrong direction will give you more clarity than standing still and thinking what should be your next step.
Mistakes are shortcuts.
The bottom line is…
You don’t have to speed up, just don’t stop and success will follow.
