“I think that part of effective schooling is helping students calibrate their dreams. Big enough doesn’t mean too big—so big that your dream is a place to hide.”
Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams
We all know someone who dreams too big. They have aspirations, but they’re not getting to work.
We’ve been told dreams are good. Ambition is rewarded in our culture. But dreaming too big is a great way to never get anything done. Dreaming about moving to a cabin and writing your novel is a nice fantasy, but it’s not getting you anywhere.
Appropriate level dreams don’t feel like dreams at all. They feel like work. Until one day you wake up and you’re living the dream.
If you really wanted to publish a novel, you could get up an hour earlier every day and write. Do that for a year, and you might have a novel for sale on Amazon. Do that for a decade and you might be able to quit your job and move to a writing cabin in the woods.
But to hold onto an unrealistic wish isn’t dreaming at all. It’s a convenient excuse to never get started.