The Strong Within Affirmation Podcast
Education:Self-Improvement
402 Theres Enough Room For Both Of Us To Pursue Our Dreams | February 2018 Tuesday Week 2
Tag Me Tuesdays-#402 February 6th The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast
There’s Enough Room For Both Of Us To Pursue Our Dreams
“I think that you have to bear in mind that music is about escape, and it's not unreasonable to think the music business would be based around escapism.”
~Peter Hook
I’m all about fairy tales. I’m all about asking for more of your life and not settle for being ordinary. I’m all about being a dreamer awakened in a life where dreamers have all gone back to sleep. But there comes a price with every dream. And we as humans want the dream without the work. We want to reap what we have sown without doing any planting.
We look at people who have what we want and we tell stories on how it was luck, or magic, in how they got to where they are. And so we condition ourselves to wish for things rather than a willingness to do whatever it takes to realize a dream. Because to tell you the truth it’s much more fun to dream about what you would do with your lottery winnings, than to actually win it. It’s a way for us to escape from our lives, and I think that’s what we use dreams as…excuses.
Excuses to leave our lives, even for a few minutes, instead of doing something different to make a dream a physical reality. But you see, doing something different would mean doing something scary…and to dream with no work involved keeps us safe. It keeps us standing on safe ground where we’ve always been…even if our so-called protected space means being stuck…because the devil you know is always better than the devil you don’t.
And so we get lost in our music, we get lost in our TV programs, or we get lost in our relationships (romantic, platonic, new acquaintances, and even strangers) because it keeps us safe. It’s easier to get lost in things that aren’t ours, or things that we haven’t truly committed to…because putting in the hard work might not work out. And we as people have lied to our hearts saying it’s safer not to try than it is to go after what means something to us even if we might fail.
The Super Bowl happened just a few days ago, and I saw a lot of social media posts talking about how underwhelmed they were by Justin Timberlake’s performance. Which I have to admit I would be nervous being on one of the biggest stages in the world with 100 million people watching.
In past shows, I’ve seen some elaborate productions as people are dropped down from the roof of the super bowl or flying around on unicorns…I mean, how can you beat a flying unicorn anyway? And as spectators, it’s easier to criticize a dreamer than it is for us to get off our butts and pursue our dreams. It’s easier to criticize one person's performance as we were only focused on him instead of seeing EVERYTHING that was going on. If you really took time to see all that was involved it was a huge machine with many moving parts…I think it was pretty impressive.
In most concerts, being physically there is the best part of the experience, you’re part of the energy, the atmosphere, and you see things from your personal vantage point. So when it’s on TV like the Super Bowl, you’re getting everything—sometimes done well in how they zoom in and out and how they focus, and sometimes not so great.
And I’m almost sure people weren’t paying attention to all the lights and lazers, they weren’t seeing that huge band marching in unison, they didn’t see his personal band on stage backing him up, they might not have thought that his movements around the field and going on the backside of the stage was choreographed so that everyone in the stadium could get a view of the show more closely, they weren’t watching all those hundreds of dancers in different colors on the field, and I bet they never really questioned why he went into the stands during his performance.
If you look at all the past performers of the Super Bowl, I would question how many of them ever went up in the stands to take pictures with people and be a part of the crowd, rather than being only in the center of an elaborate production that you can’t break away from the designated script. Now I’m not a Super Bowl halftime show expert, so maybe there could have been plenty of acts going up in the stands, and I’m not even saying Justin’s performance was the greatest of all time. I’m thinking about how easy it is to get lost in the moment of criticizing other peoples works and dreams than it is to love what they gave us. It’s easier to critique a person, and their talents, and their dreams when we aren’t pursuing our own dreams.
It reminds me of Russell Crowe’s movie Gladiator where he kills the enemy gladiators quickly and quite blood lustfully in the ring, showing his impressive skillset in war, and the crowd gets quiet, as he throws a sword into a deadly silent crowd, yelling… ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED???”
Have an opinion, be excited about things, and be let down when things don’t go exactly as you wished they would…but maybe if we took time to become more engaged in our dreams, if we actively spent time pursuing the things that make us feel alive…rather than tearing other people’s works down… we might not be so disappointed. We might stop trying to escape and avoid our lives by tearing other people apart for following their dreams.
Maybe that might sound unrealistic to some, and maybe it might be, but it’s my hope that we all encourage each other, that we all find the great things, and see the WHOLE picture, of what’s in front of us instead of finding ways to tear it down, and that we cheer for others because we want them to succeed and we’re happy for their success instead of tearing them down as a safety mechanism for ourselves…giving us room to stay comfortable as only spectators in our lives.
It’s my hope that we ARE entertained…but more in the willingness to pursue our dreams and to find the beauty in others as they chase theirs too.
Today’s Personal Commitment:
It’s not my goal to shame anyone and make them feel bad for attacking poor old defenseless Justin. My greater hope is that I help to awaken us all, myself included, to see how petty and hurtful we are at times in how we talk about things. For what we project out into the world doesn’t just end with it leaving our lips…it always will come back to us in one way or another.
Karma isn’t bad things happening to people who deserve to be punished…karma is the return of what you put out into the world. So I want to ask you, are you living a life of escapism? Are you getting lost in music to not deal with your life, or maybe getting lost in movies and TV so you can live a more exciting life through others, or do you have some other vice that’s crippling you from living how you truly wish to live?
There’s nothing wrong with those things, but it can be a thin line where the world we live in distracts us from living the life we truly want to be in. Because if we’re honest with ourselves, we live in a pretty comfortable world where it’s easier to be an armchair quarterback than to go out and pursue the dreams that matter to us.
So I want to challenge you to become awake to the things you are escaping to, and ask if it’s healthy. And if it isn’t, how can you scale back a bit and live in your own world, pursuing your own dreams, instead of numbing yourself from the problems of life. And I believe once we see problems as what they are, challenges and growing blocks to help us become better, we will stop trying to avoid them..and know they are a necessary part of life. Which will help us to find better ways to deal with them.
Edwin Louis Cole said, “Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men.”
So, you and me…let’s be unreasonable in the kindness we expect to project into the world as we build people up all while building ourselves up.
There’s Enough Room For Both Of Us To Pursue Our Dreams
Thanks for listening. I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together, Personal Development Life Coach- Chris O'Hearn
Contact info- email: chris@strongwithin.com phone:865-219-3247
Music by: - Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. - I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Location: Knoxville, Tennessee USA but available worldwide
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free