Dream Big! Take things one step at a time. Separate things into small bits so they are manageable in the day-to-day. Here what this is implying? Dreams are BIG! Things unconnected to reality can be grand and perfect and expansive and full of freedom. The practical and the day-to-day is small because that’s all we can handle. Keep your head down and you’ll do ok. Keep your nose to the grindstone. (Which has gotta hurt, cause curvature of the spine overtime, and implies that our eyesight has become myopic!)
Well, like all things, these two perspectives are the extremes in opposite directions. One doesn’t necessarily need to dream big in order to dream. To have peace in one’s life isn’t a big dream, it’s a very intimate one. Dreaming of passing your exam in a martial art so you can move to the next level isn’t big, but it’s validating and life affirming. Dreaming of dessert after a long cleanse or round of dieting isn’t huge, and the dessert probably shouldn’t be either or it will make you sick.
In the same way, sometimes life isn’t small. Sometimes the changes we think are small are actually just the beginning step of something big. Sometimes our nose being on the grindstone can keep us from seeing that what we’re doing is life altering. Sometimes that hobby we’ve picked up is not a hobby at all but an answer to the question of what should I be doing with the rest of my life. Maybe that random conversation had over lunch or drinks a catalyst to start and entire new phase of your life. Doesn’t matter if you recognize it or not just like it doesn’t require belief in order to have gravity affect you. However, life is a lot less confusing, a lot richer and more rewarding if we stop thinking of our lives as daily grinds full of little bites of things.
To live fully, to be present in the now means to change how we perceive life. To be thankful for the extremes we’ve been taught because they show us the edges, the boundaries of the known, the jumping off place for “what else.” Being here in this life and getting everything you can from it means to live in between the extremes, to see how each moment is not that, but itself. That dreams aren’t measurable by size and the practical can be big.