Don’t wish for it more than you work for it
Inky Johnson
It’s easy to put your feet up into the late hours of the night, glass of wine in hand, and dream your life away. Just as easy as it is to escape the frustrating hours of a late afternoon, by wishing for a better future.
Dreaming and wishing your life away comes relatively easy. Work, not so much.
Slow and broken though it may feel at times, your work matters, because you can never get to where you want to go if you end up wishing for it more than you are willing to work for it.
The math simply doesn’t work.
(Pun intended).
Dreaming and wishing requires a pittance of energy, but oh does it ever excite our senses and make us all warm and fuzzy on the inside. We can see it, feel it, touch it, and taste it.
Dreaming motivate us and throws us into action, but the discipline of sustained work, without a determined eye, or continuous effort, without sweat and sacrifice, your dreams will never survive the harsh winter of opportunity.
Life is a fair but she’s a demanding task mistress because she expects a lot and gives very little. Life demands that you show and exercise your resolve. She wants to applaud your stubborn determination.
You have to win her over. You have to earn your spot. You have to persevere.
Dreams don’t grow in a vacuum.
In order for them to come true, something must consume something else. One thing must give way to another because life is transformative. Nothing ever disappears because everything transforms itself into something else.
You can’t wish to be healthier without sacrificing comfort and taste for good nutrition and exercise, just like you can’t hope to be wise without without falling and making mistakes.
You can’t dream to make the world a better place or a more hospitable one for those you love, if you’re not willing to work and open yourself up to criticism.
You can’t share yourself with anyone, without the risk of being hurt. You cannot love without the danger of being rejected and disappointed.
You cannot dance without stumbling. Dig without cursing. Fight without getting your mangled body tangled up on the ropes. You cannot run without breaking a sweat.
None of this implies that you shouldn’t dream or wish or imagine how life should be.
It just means you can’t wish for it more than you’re willing to work for it.
You cannot quit before you finish.
So never stop working and you’ll not only survive the harsh winter of opportunity.
You’ll see and enjoy the lush spring of possibility.
