Natalie Weiss

Why am I struggling so much to come up with goals? Is it because I am already striving toward the ones I care most about? Is it because I think about them every day, every hour, every minute? But why can’t I put them into words? Is it because they are more of a feeling I am chasing, something seldom attained in this world, in this human life? Or am I just doubting, cynical, unbelieving? Am I afraid? Afraid of writing down big dreams and small dreams alike, because life has had a way of pushing me around once I speak my dreams into existence? But my dreams are a reflection of me, they reveal the soul embedded in the skin and bone and water.

Be careful how you define your dreams, because one day they will define you. (Jon Foreman)

I always thought of this quote in this sense: dream big, purposeful, deep; don’t dream shallow dreams – not dreams based in money or material things. If your dreams are of adventures, then you will be adventurous, alive, present. If your dreams are of material things, then you will be material, fleeting, destined to pass away. But here’s a thought too: dreams are also hopes. They are a measure of belief, of creed, of outlook.

Be careful how you define your dreams, because one day they will define you.

Is it possible to dream too big? To define dreams beyond the scope of possible, and to be burned by it? If I am always chasing but never attaining, will that damage me? Will the once-thoughtful, hopeful, striving soul become defeated, pessimistic, tainted? Big dreams challenge us, but do they also torture us?

I don’t know the answers to my questions, and, oh, how many questions I have. And so even my questions inform my dreams and my ability to write them down. My questions inform my approach to life. My questions inform how I live, and what I do, and who I am, and who I’ll be.