Do your dreams have to die just because you now have a chronic disease?
I don't believe so. Here's a few of my thoughts on the subject ...
When I was diagnosed with a severe form of AS, I had to change careers and I put a number of dreams on hold, but what I found out eventually was that I was on a totally different path now with different and equally interesting dreams to pursue.
I was in a high stress job in broadcasting when I was diagnosed, and the stress was aggravating the AS, so I left that job and found a less stressful one.
In my youth, I had dreams of being an actor and pursued that goal for a while, but I told myself that that dream was not one I could continue to have with AS, so I became a playwright. Ironically, a few years later, I ended up writing a number of one-person plays featuring a 90 year old curmudgeon character that I got to perform in regional theater and off-off-Broadway. A few years later, the internet came along and I discovered a whole new outlet for my creativity.
For those who fear AS will kill their dreams, I would tell them that the path to your dreams will always show back up. When you think you have put one dream away, another will bubble to the surface. Dreams don't really die, they undergo a metamorphosis so they can re-emerge somewhere down the road.
I've shared this analogy before, but for me the fact that my neck was losing its ability to turn was, to me, akin to putting blinders on a horse. It wasn't limiting to me, on the contrary, it focused my attention. I was all over the place when I was young, wanting to do everything, but this problem with my neck, forced me to look ahead and keep my mind on where I was going.
It got me focused in much the same way the old cartoons and silent movies used to use a small circle to zero in on a specific part of the movie frame so you could make sure to see some thing important that was happening.
You can hold having this disease in many different ways. Context is a powerful tool in coping. This disease can be held as a burden or it can be held as a challenge. It can limit you or focus your attention on what is really important.
Find the context in which you can hold having this disease and continuing to reach for your dreams. Sure, it may take adapting some of your dreams, it may take re-thinking them and finding the real essence of what you want to do, but dreams are all made up things anyway. If they go away, you just make up more of them.
Having this disease doesn't have to be tragic. Tragic is a feeling we apply to situations, it is not a requirement for having a chronic disease. Pretend you have never heard of anyone having a chronic disease, and then make up what it would be like for yourself, not what it's like based on all the movies and TV dramas you've seen, where people with chronic diseases always suffer and complain and seem either pathetic or noble in their suffering. Pretend you've never seen all those dramas and all that suffering. None of that is real and nothing says we have to follow any of those Hollywood scripts for our own lives. You can be in pain and still laugh and find the world to be a joyful place.
Remember, they're your dreams, you can make them fit how you are now.
It's all up to you, but here's what I suggest: Live your life as if you've been chosen for a very special and unique journey that only you get to experience. And remember, your dreams are your imagination's maps, which they ask your mind to draw. Simply draw them as you are, not as how you wish you could still be.
Now, stop sitting around moping and get outside yourself and play.
Michael Smith
I don't believe so. Here's a few of my thoughts on the subject ...
When I was diagnosed with a severe form of AS, I had to change careers and I put a number of dreams on hold, but what I found out eventually was that I was on a totally different path now with different and equally interesting dreams to pursue.
I was in a high stress job in broadcasting when I was diagnosed, and the stress was aggravating the AS, so I left that job and found a less stressful one.
In my youth, I had dreams of being an actor and pursued that goal for a while, but I told myself that that dream was not one I could continue to have with AS, so I became a playwright. Ironically, a few years later, I ended up writing a number of one-person plays featuring a 90 year old curmudgeon character that I got to perform in regional theater and off-off-Broadway. A few years later, the internet came along and I discovered a whole new outlet for my creativity.
For those who fear AS will kill their dreams, I would tell them that the path to your dreams will always show back up. When you think you have put one dream away, another will bubble to the surface. Dreams don't really die, they undergo a metamorphosis so they can re-emerge somewhere down the road.
I've shared this analogy before, but for me the fact that my neck was losing its ability to turn was, to me, akin to putting blinders on a horse. It wasn't limiting to me, on the contrary, it focused my attention. I was all over the place when I was young, wanting to do everything, but this problem with my neck, forced me to look ahead and keep my mind on where I was going.
It got me focused in much the same way the old cartoons and silent movies used to use a small circle to zero in on a specific part of the movie frame so you could make sure to see some thing important that was happening.
You can hold having this disease in many different ways. Context is a powerful tool in coping. This disease can be held as a burden or it can be held as a challenge. It can limit you or focus your attention on what is really important.
Find the context in which you can hold having this disease and continuing to reach for your dreams. Sure, it may take adapting some of your dreams, it may take re-thinking them and finding the real essence of what you want to do, but dreams are all made up things anyway. If they go away, you just make up more of them.
Having this disease doesn't have to be tragic. Tragic is a feeling we apply to situations, it is not a requirement for having a chronic disease. Pretend you have never heard of anyone having a chronic disease, and then make up what it would be like for yourself, not what it's like based on all the movies and TV dramas you've seen, where people with chronic diseases always suffer and complain and seem either pathetic or noble in their suffering. Pretend you've never seen all those dramas and all that suffering. None of that is real and nothing says we have to follow any of those Hollywood scripts for our own lives. You can be in pain and still laugh and find the world to be a joyful place.
Remember, they're your dreams, you can make them fit how you are now.
It's all up to you, but here's what I suggest: Live your life as if you've been chosen for a very special and unique journey that only you get to experience. And remember, your dreams are your imagination's maps, which they ask your mind to draw. Simply draw them as you are, not as how you wish you could still be.
Now, stop sitting around moping and get outside yourself and play.
Michael Smith
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