Dreaming is a nice past-time. It doesn’t hurt you but gives a nice sensation. The question is, what to do with it. You dream you don’t have MS. You dream about a vacation in Hawaii. You dream about blogging, or writing a book. All good ideas. It is where ideas start.
They get ruined because you have to finish your taxes, or the yard really need mowing. You promised to …; just fill in the blank. Writing a book is a big endeavor, but writing a newspaper article is do-able in a short time. It also is writing, right? It will help you fine-tune your skills.
Think of it as a triangle: on the left are the daily tasks such as washing the dishes, mow the lawn, take a shower, etc. On the right are the more like-able things such as writing a story for the newspaper, or a poem. At the top is what you really want: writing that book, but when do you have time for that?
A dream without a deadline will never come about! A dream with a deadline is a goal. You need faith to set that goal! What if you don’t make it by the deadline? So it goes all around in circles. How do you determine when to finish the book? In six months? A year? Two years? What faith do you need?
Very simple: set your goal for a year or two years. Based on what? Does not matter. I made that up! A novel starts with the main character charting a course, then he or she encounters all kind of challenges and at the peak there is no way out. Now what? Guess what: the author figures it out, our hero finally accomplishes the intended purpose. Isn’t that what movies are made of? If it is a good story, our main character develops character and learns from each challenge on the way.
You dream you will be without MS one day. Maybe that is not a realistic goal, especially if you are 70 or older, but you can make life easier by adapting and asking your neurologist for help with side effects. But your goal has to be just out of reach, otherwise there is no challenge to it. Why get out of bed every morning? If you don’t have a goal you will stay the same; it is a status quo. Most of what we do requires no faith. If you aim at nothing you are certain to hit it. Plans give you hope. What kind of hope?
Watching a TV show every day may not be a good idea, because where will it lead to? Will you remember it a month from now? It is just not worth doing. Many things are not worth doing. We set goals too low and try to accomplish them quickly. Reach for the moon, but you may only reach the fence post. It is the journey.
The bottom line: A goal is a dream with a deadline.