Dreams
More thoughts to ponder: Dreams. Do they have to die just because you have a chronic disease? Someone asked about giving up dreams over on the SAA message board. Here’s what I think … what do you think about having to give up dreams? I had to change careers and put a number of dreams away, but what I found was a different path with other equally interesting dreams to pursue. I was in a high stress job in broadcasting when diagnosed, the stress was aggravating the AS, so I left and found a less stressful job. I had dreams of being an actor for a long time and even was one for a while, but I found that that dream was not one I could continue with AS, so I became a playwright and ironically, ended up writing a number of one-person plays that I got to perform in a regional theater and off-off-Broadway. I then discovered a whole new outlet for my writing on the internet. 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, but rather it focused my attention. I was all over the place when I was young, but this 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 ‘iris in’ to focus 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. It may take adapting your dreams, it may take re-thinking them, but dreams are all made up things anyway. If they go away, you just make up more. 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 pathetic. 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. Remember, they’re your dreams, you can make them fit how you are now. It’s up to you. Live your life as if you’ve been chosen for a very special and unique journey that only you get to experience. And remember, dreams are your imagination’s maps, which they ask your mind to draw. Simply draw them as you are, not as you wish you could still be.”
By Michael Smith
More thoughts to ponder: Dreams. Do they have to die just because you have a chronic disease? Someone asked about giving up dreams over on the SAA message board. Here’s what I think … what do you think about having to give up dreams? I had to change careers and put a number of dreams away, but what I found was a different path with other equally interesting dreams to pursue. I was in a high stress job in broadcasting when diagnosed, the stress was aggravating the AS, so I left and found a less stressful job. I had dreams of being an actor for a long time and even was one for a while, but I found that that dream was not one I could continue with AS, so I became a playwright and ironically, ended up writing a number of one-person plays that I got to perform in a regional theater and off-off-Broadway. I then discovered a whole new outlet for my writing on the internet. 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, but rather it focused my attention. I was all over the place when I was young, but this 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 ‘iris in’ to focus 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. It may take adapting your dreams, it may take re-thinking them, but dreams are all made up things anyway. If they go away, you just make up more. 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 pathetic. 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. Remember, they’re your dreams, you can make them fit how you are now. It’s up to you. Live your life as if you’ve been chosen for a very special and unique journey that only you get to experience. And remember, dreams are your imagination’s maps, which they ask your mind to draw. Simply draw them as you are, not as you wish you could still be.”
By Michael Smith
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