Achievement

Chase your dreams! You may be surprised by where they lead you.

I am surprised by where repressing my dreams has led me currently. I guess I thought, until relatively recently, that dreams are synonymous with fantasies.. and I have begun to think this is untrue.

DREAM–noun

1.	a succession of images, thoughts, or emotions passing through the mind during sleep.

2.	the sleeping state in which this occurs.

3.	an object seen in a dream.

4.	an involuntary vision occurring to a person when awake.

5.	a vision voluntarily indulged in while awake; daydream; reverie.

6.	an aspiration; goal; aim: A trip to Europe is his dream.

7.	a wild or vain fancy.

8.	something of an unreal beauty, charm, or excellence.

FANTASY–noun

1.	imagination, esp. when extravagant and unrestrained.

2.	the forming of mental images, esp. wondrous or strange fancies; imaginative conceptualizing.

3.	a mental image, esp. when unreal or fantastic; vision: a nightmare fantasy.

4.	Psychology. an imagined or conjured up sequence fulfilling a psychological need; daydream.

5.	a hallucination.

6.	a supposition based on no solid foundation; visionary idea; illusion: dreams of Utopias and similar fantasies.

7.	caprice; whim.

8.	an ingenious or fanciful thought, design, or invention.

9.	Also, fantasia. Literature. an imaginative or fanciful work, esp. one dealing with supernatural or unnatural events or characters: The stories of Poe are fantasies of horror.

The venn-diagram of these two words does indeed overlap - and yet there is a distinct difference... you can tell in the word choices used in the definition of fantasy : hallucination, illusion, unreal, ingenious. So what I am hearing is.. in order to achieve, dreaming is not only okay - its NECESSARY. But trying to fulfill capricious and unreal fantasies will ensure my failure. I used to be an overachiever. Is the reason I am unhappy currently because I am not "achieving" things that others can readily measure, as I have my entire young adult life. I realized grades were not the way to make myself happy, but didn't figure out what I needed to replace that with, so what I've got is uncertainty. And this is OK. Its ok not to know. But I can't say "I don't know... I'll wait until it appears to me in a dream or I walk right into it." Does that happen? Can we passively achieve? And If we do so, are we limiting how much we can achieve within our lifetime? Is it better to try one thing after another without knowing what you want or to wait a moment and figure it out? Is it possible that by focusing our energies toward things we do not desire we may miss out on something we truly DO WANT?

If we achieve many things that have no meaning to use, have we achieved anything?

Xo, M