Don’t Dream – Do

Have you ever received a second-hand compliment?

That’s when someone says something good about you, but you hear it from someone else.

It has a special power because you’ve not only affected the person giving the compliment, but also the person repeating the compliment. 

This happened recently to me when a friend – I’ll call her Samantha – told me she accomplished something way out of her comfort zone. She had wanted to return to a beloved camp far away from her home, one where she had been a counselor as a young woman. Now, with her kids grown up and finally having time of her own, she had the opportunity to return as the head of counselors. 

But Samantha had never done anything like this before. She feared leaving for such an extended period, all alone and without her husband. She said it felt selfish and a little wild to want to do something at this time of her life just for herself. 

Her husband encouraged her to go, saying, “Alison just goes and does things. Copy her. Do it!”

And it worked. Samantha took his advice and had one of the most gloriously enriching summers of her life.

It feels good to think of myself as a role model for chasing your dreams. But I wasn’t always this way. It took time for me to get over what other people expected of me – or at least what I thought they expected of me – and go after something that didn’t fit neatly into what I saw as an ideal life. 

Rules

Why is it so hard to chase our dreams and just “go for it?” What holds us back and why is it so scary to take a leap of faith?

And I ask this especially for women. We seem to be swayed more by societal expectations than men, ones that serve to keep us in line, not ask for too much or to not rock the boat. 

We’re often meant to see our lives in a trajectory from college to a career to marriage, a home, a family. Having a bucket list is allowed, but are we allowed to have one of our own, that doesn’t include the hubby or wifey? Is it OK to want to do something away from the kids? Can we just want to try something for ourselves without feeling selfish?

I remember when I was a little kid directing the radio with a pencil. I was so lost in that moment of leading a bunch of musicians with my physical actions, I wanted to do this forever.

But that dream in the mid ‘70s was out of the question. This was still the era of glass ceilings and men-with-perfect-heads-of-(gray)-hair running the show. There was no way some goofy music-loving little girl was going to get a shot. 

When my dad poured cold water on my big plans at the age of six, the message was less about the specific field I wanted to pursue and more about learning to dream less big.

Maybe he could have sent me to conductor camp or gotten me a few lessons to see if this was the real deal. Instead it was like, girls don’t do that. Dad shot down my idea to be the female version of Herbert von Karajan, but to be fair, so did I, in accepting that narrow definition of what I could do and who I could be – and instead challenging those rules.

Fear

The writer Anne Lamott wrote, “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.”

Earlier this summer, I explored the premise of Susan Jeffers best selling book, “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway.”

The truth is, fear never really goes away completely. If we want to do something, we will probably have to do it accepting that fear is coming along for the ride. 

That being said, it’s actually not overcoming fear that helps us explore our fullest potential, but facing our fears. When people ask me about walking a long trail, I tell them it’s just a series of steps one after the other. 

That’s what putting yourself out there is all about.
That’s giving your dreams a try no matter the outcome.
That is badass.

You can’t wait until you’ve overcome fear to start something. What you need to do is step forward in spite of fear – willing to fail spectacularly, if it comes to that – because in the end we tend not to regret the things we’ve done, but the things we were too chicken to try. 

Shame

When I returned from a five-month hike of New Zealand and found myself in one of the bleakest moments of my life, Richard said it would be best for my mental health to get right back on trail. 

I was aghast. “But what will people think??”

I had already been away for half a year and he thought it was a good idea to up and go away for another half year?!

This was a time when helpful friends were sending me job listings – some that I was totally unqualified for, but the thought was sweet. One lectured me on having a “gap” in my resume I’d need to explain and still others were uncertain going out on yet another hike was going to accomplish anything at all. 

But my husband – a bit like Samantha’s – persisted.

When I blubbered, “But what will people think?”
He responded, “Who cares?!”

So I went, starting small with just a section hike in Washington state, then cashing in my chips and walking all the way to Mexico.

I should mention here that Richard didn’t just throw me back on any old trail. I had talked about the Pacific Crest Trail for a long time, wondering if some day I might walk it. 

But I’d been carrying around this secret wish a long time, one that was becoming heavy and lonely. I felt ashamed that one long trail in a lifetime wasn’t enough and I wanted more. So when Richard saw the opportunity, he pushed me towards it.

And I don’t regret it, even if some of my well-meaning friends thought I’d lost my marbles – and I closed the door on quickly finding another job.

It sort of comes full circle. We feel pressured to behave as society expects, we’re afraid of looking like idiots following a dream and then we’re ashamed we even want to at all, so never do anything.

Permission 

The only way to make our dreams come true is to act. To do. 

I think Samantha knew she could do what she wanted – she had the time, the money, the support, the strength. What she really needed was permission. 

She needed to know that all of us feel angst about following a dream that veers off the normal path and out of our comfort zone. There will always be good reasons to not do something we have always wanted to do. It bears repeating: at the end of our lives, we tend to regret more the things we didn’t do than the things we did.

So friends, I give you permission to get out there and follow your dreams. You never know what you’ll find. It might even be yourself.