Dreams Deferred: Standing in the Way of Your Own Goals
What Happens To A Dream Deferred?
My grandmother on my father’s side always dreamed of seeing the Eiffel Tower. She always dreamed leaving her Homeland of Haiti-just for a week or so to go straight to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. Raised under the strictest patriarchy rules, she was never allowed to travel without the presence of a man. Her first husband- the womanizer- never acknowledged what she wanted and her second husband-the wife beater-was too cruel to take her. When her second husband passed away and she decided she could go on her own “when the time was right,” she began getting these cloudy spots in her right eye. Merde. She murmured when those cloudy spots turned into blurred and impaired vision. She had developed glaucoma, and would never see anything clearly again, let alone the Eiffel Tower.
My father always dreamed of driving across America. Always the taciturn individual, this was the one subject that would make him quite talkative. His goal was retirement. Once he retired from his job he would go, just him and my mom. I was 15 when his eyes started getting cloudy. “Things are different here,” he’d tell his mother. “A couple of surgeries and I’ll be fine,” he assured her. When I turned 17, he stopped being able to drive at night and by the time I hit my freshman year of college, he could no longer drive at all.
A couple of weeks ago, I woke up from a wonderful slumber and half of my left eye wouldn’t work. It was cloudy.
Barriers Between Us and Our Dreams
This isn’t a story of glaucoma. This is a story of dreams deferred.
Every day of our lives is a chance- an opportunity to work towards our goals and find a way to make our wildest dreams come true. And the only person that actually stands in our way is us.
We give people the power to stop us from following our dreams. We set limitations on our goals. Even my dick head grandfather did not hold a gun to my grandmother’s head and tell her she could not go to Paris. She allowed her inner voice to tell her not this year, every single year-even after he died. My father worked at the same company for 20 years, they would have given him a couple of weeks off to have his adventure if he asked, if he pushed for it.
Moving Out of Your Own Way
The point is, we don’t know what tomorrow brings, we never do. Yet all we do is push things off until tomorrow and then blame everyone but ourselves when our lives don’t turn out the way we want it to. Shit, I’ve had a book written and ready to edit for years now yet I allowed my insecurities and fear of rejection to keep me from releasing it to the world. Isn’t that such a fucked up concept? That our own fears and insecurities can hold us back from living our lives?! Our best lives, as the kids say.
Stop pointing the blame at other people and other things and ask yourself: how am I standing in the way of my own success? How am I keeping myself from my dreams?
The thing about life is that it can take us anywhere. You can spend your whole life working out and eating right and still die at thirty from cancer or some random act of violence in the streets. Those are the type of things that are out of our control. When we decide to take a trip, publish a novel, see the world, ask someone out-those things are not. Stop waiting for a sign or for your body to look nicer or for your situation to change. Stop creating invisible barriers and live your fucking life. Do it now.
High Thoughts
The Power of Our Minds
I think it’s important for us to start off by discussing the power of our mind.
So I don’t know how tv savvy you are but there’s this old Simpsons episode and although I’m a TV guru I can’t for the life of me remember which episode this is from. But anyway, somehow we end up in Lisa’s mind and she’s having this conversation with herselves. And no, that’s not a typo-like for instance writing be instead of been- she was actually having a conversation with multiple Lisas. I believe in this episode the different Lisas were representative of the ID, the Ego and the Super Ego, a Freudian model of the psych. This model basically showcases how there are three versions of you: the you who wants to just do whatever whenever, the you who is organized and thinks realistically, and the you who focuses on the good vs the bad and trying to get you to do good. Now I got my definitions from a skim of Wikipedia so please go there if you’re expecting this to be an in-depth explanation of Freud’s theory. I’m out here using that as a jumping off point.
I think there’s more than just three versions of us: three Lisas of the brain arguing over what decision real life Lisa is going to make. I think that there’s at least five or six versions of us that live up in our mind waiting for their time in the sun. Now, I’m not talking United States of Tara where one version of us takes over our whole body but I’m talking more of a dinner party. Yes here comes another analogy (high me loves these things).
The Dinner Party
Ok so imagine you’re at a dinner party filled with different versions of you: there’s the critical you, the angry you, the lonely you, the happy you, the horny you, and all of the other dwarves. Now just like at a real dinner party there’s going to those one or two people that love to talk and when you give them enough attention, they will take over the whole conversation not leaving anyone room to speak.
So here you are at your dinner party with these different versions of you. Like any dinner party, it’s awkward at first: everyone is just acquaintances, their only real connection being you. So they smile awkwardly at each other, making small talk, waiting for the waiter to finally bring those bread sticks he promised fifteen minutes ago. It’s up to you to break the ice and to start the conversation. So you turn to one of those versions: let’s say the critical you, and Critical You is far from nice. You guys talk and as you talk and give Critical You attention, they take up more and more airtime to the point where you forget the other players are there. Happy You tries to interject: “hey, that’s harsh! You’re great, don’t listen to them!” But it’s too late because you’ve been listening to Critical You for so long that that’s the only voice you can really hear.
Now in actuality the point of this dinner party is so that all voices get equal airtime and can influence you in a way that will only be positive and growth driven but because you are giving Critical You or Emotional You or Horny You more airtime, the rest kind of dwindle away and when you have your next dinner party, maybe Introspective You doesn’t show up, you never pay them much mind anyway. Then Political You “can’t find a baby sitter” and Confident You is “working late” and before you know it, your latest dinner party has become an intimate dinner for two: for you and Critical You-how lovely.
Essentially, we feed into our own thoughts. You think you’re not good enough because you’re only listening to the version of you who thinks you’re not good enough. Maybe this version of you spent a lot of time hanging out with your parents and seventh grade bully so their opinion is warped so technically you shouldn’t be listening to them anyway, but here you are.
What does this have to do with being high?
So in our introduction to the site we discuss how conversations can go to different levels and how being high takes you through these levels quicker and before you know it you’re on a level where you’re discussing your place in this multi-verse.
These conversations can be had with others but they start with yourself. If you’re having a conversation with yourself while high and going through the levels it definitely steers the conversation a certain way and effects if you even make it to in depth levels. If you’re having a conversation with Horny You and you ask them, why am I on this earth? They’re going to say, to procreate! God never intended for man to be tied down let’s give Him what he wanted and go fuck. And just like that you’re that person who goes around saying, “I get so horny when I’m high”
Of course you get horny when you’re high if y’all have a table for two at the restaurant! It’s the only voice you’re hearing and you won’t make it far with them.
Tip for the future:
At your next dinner party (whether it’s high or sober), turn to someone you haven’t heard from in a while and say what’s up. If you look around and you’re at a table for two, quietly excuse yourself and slip out the back door, texting Happy You to see how they’ve been.