Gotta Believe to Achieve but Acknowledgement Comes First...

A few nights ago a friend shared with me an indiscretion that was made during a recent encounter. A young lady shared her dream which was to someday marry and have children. My friend’s response was something to the effect of “then why did you bother with getting an education”. Wow! Now my friend has recoiled over this action and apologized profusely. We had some lengthy discussion over this (and damage control). I had some more intense thoughts about this response being so typical of the way we fail to acknowledge each other’s unique desires. What we do, achieve, have, aspire for and even convey to others is so often in conflict. Our actions and our desires do not always align. Even when we may appear to be very much on our game things are often capsized. The key is, “Are we playing OUR game? or are we sitting on the sidelines or playing for someone else?” When my husband and I first started dating I was on the career path. I even told him I didn’t want to get married for a quite a while. Having emerged from a “learning relationship” (that’s what they really are right?) I had a beautiful child I adored. My agenda now was to go back to my original blueprint & to wait to have others. Of course you know where this went since I already identified “him” as “my husband”. Soon we had other children. Our logic was well we already had one and we didn’t want huge gaps in spacing. While all of this is going along I keep telling myself and others that this is a logical plan. I have a great spouse, beautiful children and the pretty basic middle class dream. I struggled to maintain my career and education. I was frustrated because I felt like I was always robbing someone of time to build something. One day I blurted out in a moment of frustration “All I really ever wanted was to have a family”. Whoa….whoa…whoa…. brakes came screeching and my mind was blown. Seriously this was a mic drop moment. My husband began to utter to me, “So why have you bothered to ….” He stopped himself but I could have finished it for him. I’d been lying to even myself all these years. I was miserable. Now here is the catch for those of us lying to ourselves we are each avid story tellers creating our own lie or fairy tale. Don’t take the face value of kids’ vs a career or other things as the topic at hand. The topic is why do we lie to even ourselves about our hopes and dreams? When the fairy tales we create in our heads take twisted turns we limit our ability to find peace and happiness. Notice I stated what we create in our mind not our actual physical circumstances. We manifest what our mind conjures up and if our mind is playing a hard core game of “one of these things just doesn’t belong here” then no matter what we aspire for, have or achieve, will actually make us happy. Don’t think I am suggesting we sell ourselves short or that we can’t be “multi achievers”. What I am saying is that you need to be honest with yourself before you can be honest with others or even be able to manifest things in a joyful and fulfilling manner. You cannot live your dream whatever it is. If you can’t be honest about what you want for yourself then bottom line is you won’t have it.Being honest and owning what I desired at that time created a balance where everything even my bussiness flourished.

I am not going to pretend to know what this course of action should look like for each person; our journeys are different. But if you are searching for inner peace and even success in your endeavors; start by being honest about your vision especially with yourself. Now back to my friend it is probably safe to let you know that my friend is a young man with a keen interest in this lovely young woman. I saved this tidbit so you would not judge him as some sort of chauvinistic monster. His comment was not about her gender. To him, her actions in life didn’t match her ambitions. Now he did comment that he was “being an ass”. He was baiting her to find out what her dreams for the future really were. People intentionally mislead others all the time. My friend was going to hollow out that apple right in the beginning. Leave no margin for error in understanding about what she wanted. While he might have offered a softer approach he was wanting truth for himself and clarity for her, should their relationship continue. He let me know that he was fine with whatever her answer was but…… He couldn’t understand why someone would spend so much time pursuing one thing when in fact they dreamed of something else (not a male, female thing but about choices). We spoke awhile. I told him my story and told him if he was truly interested in her to contact her (maybe sprint) and apologize, apologize, apologize. You see he may have found a rare gem. It is so hard to find someone who actually knows what they want. Even rarer is someone who will openly share their dreams (especially when they may know they might be judged for them). Treasure those that simply answer honestly and we say that is amazing! Own your truth with honor. Recognizing & acknowledging your dreams can create self-actualization and abundance in our lives. We were created to not merely exist but to thrive. It doesn’t matter our age, our gender, our family path, our past or our present. If we are honest about searching inside our soul for what we desire and then believe it we can achieve it!.Copyright © 2017 Micheline Edwards