The Fear of Achieving Your Most Sacred Dream

It is said that fear is the greatest barrier between having a dream and achieving that dream.  There can be no doubt that fear is an extremely paralysing condition.  Fear of failure prevents many of us from reaching out and grasping our dreams, even when all we need do is to stretch out a hand and take the very thing that we have longed desired.  In my own life, there are dreams that I harbour, deep rooted dreams that I long to achieve, and yet I do not.  Why? Like so many others, I too am scared of achieving that which I desire the very most.

What makes this an even more bizarre situation for myself, is that I am fully cognisant of this fact.  I am very self aware, I know how I think and I understand fully how, and why I act in the ways that I do.  I guess a lot of that comes from having lived alone for many years and in having spent a lot of time in my own company.  I'm not sure how healthy that is exactly, and it is not something that I ever really wished for myself, yet, it is the set of circumstances that I have been given, and because of them, I have been able to self reflect, to meditate and to come to a deeper understanding of myself.  Without that time of reflection and meditation, I would not be where I am today, nor would I be the person that I have become.  I am grateful for the path that I have been given and for the opportunity of coming to know my true self.

It has become increasingly apparent to me that I am scared of achieving my deepest held dreams in life.  Those dreams are of finding love and companionship with a partner, becoming a husband and a father, raising a family, and of having my own dog.  With the exception of the dog, which I see as an integral part of the family set up, these things are the very essence of what it means to be a human and the very reasons for which I exist.  Every thing else is superfluous.  Every thing else is like the frame around a masterpiece of a painting.

So, if I know this and understand it, why do I do nothing about it?  What is it that makes me so scared to achieve that which I most desire?  Fear.  It is the fear that the reality will never live up to the picture of the dream that I have created in my mind.  This fear makes me reluctant to commit myself to any one, to any place, to any thing.  I move my life around from one place to another, staying only for a short time, knowing that I am already planning to leave, even before I arrive. In staying only for the short-term, I make it almost impossible to meet any one special, to form strong relationships and friendships.  I don't commit to any one.  And I also create the perfect excuse for not realising my dream. 

How can I possibly find any one special with which to spend my life, if I move location and job every year or so?  It is just not possible.  I tell myself that I move because I like the challenge, I enjoy the adventure, and that I thrive on walking into the unknown.  There is some truth in that.  I do love to travel and to push the boundaries of my own knowledge and to challenge myself.  But what if I only enjoy the travel so much because it means that I never have to commit to my other dreams?

There is another reason why I do not find the right person with which to settle down and start a family.  I purposely sabotage any chance that I have by picking the wrong kind of people.  I only recently discovered this truth late last year, as my last relationship broke up.  I was able to look back on my life and see that each of the women I have selected as potential partners, were in fact completely wrong for me.  Each of them was flawed, a little broken, and I thought the way to love was to fix them, to help them along the road.  And in fixing them, I thought that they would love me all the more.  This was and is a completely false concept and one that I now see as completely wrong.  You cannot mend anyone.  Only they can mend themselves.  No amount of effort can make someone love you.  Love has to grow naturally between two people who are equally matched, who share the same values and goals in life.  I can now see that by selecting women who were wrong for me, I was preventing myself from ever being able to achieve my dreams, and at the same time, I was giving myself the perfect excuse for not doing so.

I know that I am scared of achieving my most longed for dreams.  Possessing that knowledge can only help me to break through the barrier that I have created.  Perhaps it has been necessary for me to travel this path, so that I could learn these lessons and see for myself the error of my ways.  Whatever the reason, it matters not.  All that really matters is that I have arrived at a place, at a time, where I know what needs to be done.  I must overcome my fears, I must take a deep breath, and I must walk tall along the path to the discovery and the attainment of my dream.  After all, dreams are created to be achieved.  Dreams are of no use if they stay a dream and do not transcend into the realm of reality.  A dream is just a dream, but for some of us, a dream can be reality itself.  And I want to be counted as one with those people.

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