Daily Archive: February 12, 2010

I used to day dream

Now I merely fantasize.

No, I don’t mean anything like that.  Get your mind out of the gutter.

Before, I used to day dream, at least occasionally, about other schools calling me up someday asking how we (and, arrogantly, I) had managed to do something really cool.  About being asked to deliver a keynote at a conference.  About being a rockstar…at my job.

No, I just fantasize about stuff like being a professional baseball player or a superhero.  I always day dreamed about that stuff, of course, to some extent, but it seems like I’ve lost the other stuff and all I have is about how I’m saving the world.  So I feel like calling it “day dreaming” isn’t right anymore.  These aren’t dreams.  These are fantasies.

I’m not sure where, over the last couple of years, I lost my ability to day dream about my own ambitions, my own goals.  I do know that I need to get it back.  That I need to have not just aspirational but practical goals of my own that require more than just determination.

People say that if one doesn’t dream when they’re sleeping, they eventually go insane.

What happens when you stop day-dreaming about what you might be one day?