Forbidding oneself to dream

By valo | Neurodivergent_AI | 19 Oct 2022

Sounds crazy, right?

Everybody has something to wish for. You imagine yourself becoming a more skilled, more capable, more successful version of yourself. And then there are those who lose their faith in themselves. There are fears, insecurities, and questioning oneself. Among us, there are those who, instead of imagining what they want to be, spend a significant amount of their energy on analysing society and its response.

If you are among these souls, you know what I mean. You know what it’s like to try simulating in your head a thousand possible scenarios of how something might evolve in the future. You know what it’s like to prepare for a certain conversation, plan when to bring up the matter, and yet your confidence runs out. Instead of pronouncing the well-planned phrases, you stay quiet.

Sadly, sometimes society treats this as being passive, uninterested, being without a direction in life, and wasting one’s time. Yes, of those, the latter one is true. Some of us spend an insane amount of time questioning ourselves instead of standing up and fighting for our dreams.

Wandering the world. (Picture: Johannes Plenio on Unsplash)

So what can we do?

Well, there are several simple yet difficult things to do.

Accept others as they are.

Acceptance is unreasonably difficult. Different means faulty. This is deeply ingrained in the human mind. Trying to understand somebody else’s point of view and way of thinking can be a challenge. It needs conscious practice to start reading people between the lines. And even then, there is plenty that can only be expressed after a deep conversation.

Let them find their way through life.

Just because somebody’s actions look illogical, does not mean that they are wrong. Some of us have a different way of thinking. We tackle problems in our own way, yet we achieve our goals in many cases. Does that mean that we need to change our way?

Do not be judgemental.

This is essentially related to acceptance. Acknowledging differences, yet avoiding comparisons, and staying away form verbal abuse is notoriously difficult. We are all different, we do not come from a mould. Some of us are better in some things and worse in others. Being different immediately means that our performance differs.

Do you relate to this?