“There is nothing wrong with Living the Dream. But make sure it is your own dream and not someone else’s.” – Vlad
Mankind is slowly achieving great progress in terms of technology, medicine or astronomy.
But what happens when creativity, originality, individuality and spirituality are cast aside, forgotten?
We become robots, no more than mindless drones to the great machine that society is.
We achieve great things in terms of technology but we forget to do what we love, to do what we really like deep down in our hearts. We forget how to be humans.
What is the reason for such a downfall?
Among other various reasons presented on Interview with Your Consciousness, I will show you one of the biggest factors in leading us astray from the path of humanity, love, kindness and connection to the divine.
The Struggle to Live the Dream
What am I actually saying by “living the dream”?
I am referring to the idea that each and everyone one of us wants to live his or her life according to a particular style, in a particular manner and according to the dreams and wishes the person has.
Example: Susan has always dreamed of becoming a successful finance advisor. She has therefore stirred her life towards this type of career and consequently, her friends, her current town, car, apartment, clothes, food and sexual life revolve around this particular dream that she wanted to achieve, or LIVE.
She is working long and late hours, she barely has time for a relation-ship.
For sustenance, she is satisfied with buns for breakfast, 4 coffees a day and some fast-food takeaway.
She wears uncomfortable clothes, drives the latest BMW since everyone in the office has one and goes out with people who work in the same line of business – thus her area of knowledge, inspiration and creativity is stuck in the 4 walls of Finance Advising – of her dream.
Deep down she feels she is unhappy because she understands there is more to life. She knows she is missing on great times and experiences.
But she once had a dream and she had to follow it.
She’s become so entangled that she will continue to pursue her dream even if it doesn’t bring her happiness.
Even if she is presented with several alternatives to her life, career and dreams, she will dismiss them and note to herself that she has a job to do and that’s what pays for her BMW, uncomfortable clothes, takeaways, trips and life-style in general. It does not bring her happiness but she has to buy all of these.
Everyone at the office does, her family members do and therefore: so should she!
She has no time for a boyfriend with the current workload presented to her. It can wait.
Where did this downward spiral started?
Inception of the Dream
For those of you who saw Christopher Nolan’s movie, Inception, you know where I am going with this.
At some point in time during Susan’s life, she saw a relative with expensive clothes and cars. She saw a friend’s mother driving a Mercedes and boosting around a big Ego.
They were all working in the Finance department of some company.
While watching TV, she saw again the Mercedes and people walking around being dressed smart and working in modern and spacious offices right in the centre of some big City where all the “good” stuff happed and each second that passed by was one more second of her life during which she was missing on those activities and experiences.
Susan’s high school organised several career fairs and speeches in this regard. Flashy people with expensive suits and watches waved their big Ego about. Another seed to this artificial dream has been put in Susan’s head.
If Susan’s initial dreams were to become a ballet dancer, organic farmer, veterinarian or just a wonderer and traveller of the world, her mind and thought has been distracted from her actual, personal and original dreams to an artificial new one.
She has been socially programmed to become a robot, a drone to the economy.
No one likes calculating taxes and working long hours. Yet here is Susan giving up her personal dreams for a new one.
She has therefore decided that she should not miss on those big things everyone was talking about and do everything necessary to follow this new dream of hers.
The irony is that she will be missing on the real life while trying not to miss the dream everyone was talking about :).
Susan is now living the dream. Not hers obviously.
Internalising Your Decisions
By internalising your decisions and actions, you can be one step ahead of any social programming you might have been exposed to.
Analysing your life’s decisions with great care and via cultivating Awareness and Meditation, will improve your odds of taking the right decisions for yourself.
You will thus be sure that you are actually doing what you like, going where you want, eating the type of food you enjoy and listening to the music you love.
You might have noticed people in your life that do things and take some decisions which are detrimental to their well-being.
When confronted about it, their response is short and depressing: I don’t know why. That’s the way things have to be. Everyone does it.
It’s as if an automated system has been installed in these people’s brains and they are following specific routines without question.
Solutions
In the 8 Must-Follow Man Rules article, I have presented other solutions to being the Master of your own decisions and dreams.
As taken from the article:
Almost all of the time people are not in charge of their own thoughts and constantly bombard their high self with an uncontrolled and contradictory mixture of plans, wishes and fears. This confuses the high self and it is why most people’s lives appear to be equally haphazard and uncontrolled.
You should take time out at frequent intervals to think about your life and visualize in concrete terms what you wish to happen to yourself. By doing this, you can more consciously control the events that befall you and as a result, make your own future.
What if Your Thoughts Are not Actually Yours?
What if beyond the general perspective of Living the Dream I have just presented, there is even more depth and understanding of your preferences and wishes in life.
What if the most usual and important aspect of your life are being dictated by third parties and what you think, eat, drink, read or who you have sex with are not what you really wanted?
What if the women you like are the superficial type with glittery stuff on clothes, high heels that behave bitchy? You always suffer and ponder on why it never turns out good for you when you talk to this kind of women.
You have seen these type of women advertised on TV commercials and magazines. They are the new trend. You have to like it.
Same as with music. Rihanna just released a new album. You probably do not like it for the life of it, but somehow you have to listen to it since it’s been advertised everywhere. It has to be cool.
Folks from the country side that move to big cities will spend most of their lunches and dinners at fast food places such as KFC.
They saw KFC and MacDonald’s at TV and they want to experience it.
Even though their farmer’s organic food was healthier and better, they prefer KFC and Mc. because it’s cool, in fashion and everyone here does it. It’s modern.
They are Living the Dream. A dream instilled in them while watching TV or reading some newspaper.
Women naively regard men that smoke and drink whiskey sexier than those that do not. They will not admit it first-hand, but their subconscious will decide for them otherwise in the heat of the moment.
How can they not like a man that holds a cigarette? They saw James Dean doing it in his movies. All the bad boys in the movies did it. It’s fucking sexy.
Even though these bad boys are no good and bring only a mess in the girl’s life, she will continue to follow these type of men in a desperate and pathetic attempt to satisfy one thing: she has to live the dream.
Living the Dream is the path to Suffering
As per the examples above, all those actions lead to suffering.
The woman will suffer every time she engages in any sort of relations with those type of men.
Some other person will experience suffering by purchasing a BMW she does not need and can hardly afford. She makes up for it by working more and adding more stress to her life.
Eating fast food and drinking Coke is satisfying the dream, but it also brings suffering in terms of obesity, health problems and Parkinson.
Parkinson?
Michael J. Fox from “Back to the Future” used to advertise Diet Pepsi. He was also an avid consumer of Diet Pepsi.
Guess what happened to him? Parkinson happened, and at a very young age.
However, he was really cool in Back to the Future trilogy and charming.
All the teenagers wanted to be like him.
If he wore white trainers, so would the teenagers.
If he drank Diet Pepsi, so would the teenagers.
It is really difficult to distinguish what’s real and what is just an illusion, but in today’s world where we are bombarded with so many options and possibilities, we have to make it a priority to understand where we are heading with our lives.
We have to know if our dreams are actually real and if what we make of today will bring a better tomorrow.
Cultivate awareness and wisdom into your life and your actions and dreams will spring from your heart and consciousness and not from external influences.
Stay vigilant,
Vlad
photocredit: fitforherlife.com, fashion365.ro, donedirtcheapdvd.com
