Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you name your son after the captain of DS9?
Not OP but my daughter and ex wife haven’t worked out the name I picked for my daughter was from an ST:TNG character. They’d kill me.
not Kes though right?
Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)
21–30 of 229 posts
Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)
#22Never let your memes be dreams nor your dreams be memes.
Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)
#23One of the best lessons I've learned was that the happiest I've been (so far) was a time when I was dirt poor, while chasing my dream that everyone assured me ends in poverty. Things have changed, but it takes some of the financial anxiety away when I remember that I would still give up everything to go back to that time.
I find I there is anxiety either direction but have more engaging days when I am chasing something deeply.
Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)
#24Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)
#25Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)
#26> Sometimes, dreams can just be dreams.
If (for any reason) we know that dreams cannot be achieved, there is a clear cut. And while it might take time to accept the situation, this realization is Stoic/Zen.
It is way harder if there is a chance, we try, yet fail. When do we keep trying, and how do we do so without losing hope piece by piece? It might be even harder when the dream is not something like "win a gold medal in snowboarding", "build a unicorn startup" or "publish a bestseller". But it is in the line of having kids, or being healthy, or other things that a lot of people take for granted.
Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)
#27Appropos of nothing, snowboarding is so unbelievably fun once you’re past the immediate beginner phase of painfully flip-flopping down a slope, that it’s very reasonable to be a tad angry at not being able to live that dream.
Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)
#28As someone with less than stellar knees who skis a lot, ski/ride powder. It's way easier on the body and more fun too. And maybe skip the big jumps. You can definitely still ride big/steep enough mountains for a big adrenaline rush.
Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)
#29A life well-lived is really what we should all hope for. What that actually means varies by person. Sitting and thinking for 10 minutes about snowboarding when your knees are blown out is 10 minutes you could have used differently. Everyone has regrets but my attitude is: I can’t change the past, but I can change the future.
> Sitting and thinking for 10 minutes about snowboarding when your knees are blown out is 10 minutes you could have used differently. 10 minutes doesnt sound like much of a loss, even if you do it every day. Maybe it helps you empathize with athletes, or if you get nostalgic/wistful, it helps you explore the range of emotions, which is fine as long as you don't get stuck with them.
Sure, I was being extreme. The danger is getting stuck, like in “Glory Days” by Springsteen, or Brando in “On the Waterfront.” People especially get stuck on their high school years.
Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)
#30As I always say - do what you will regret NOT doing once you are old.
> As I always say - do what you will regret NOT doing once you are old.
IMO whether or not this is good for self or society depends a lot on what you value and thus think you will regret. On its own it is neither positive or negative and has to be combined with a lot of self-reflection and an innate sense of goodness to be useful.
Regret minimization is an oft-cited mantra among a lot of the current crop of centibillionaires who, if decency still matters in the future, will be viewed by society as even worse versions of gilded age villains.
And there is no evidence that this strategy helps those people on the personal development side when we remove society's view of them from the picture. You don't have to look at them too deeply to see that getting more than everything they wanted as a younger person never filled the void they have that keeps them wanting ever more regardless of how much damage they have to do in the process.
If you're a normal human being and what you will regret is not spending more time with loved ones and such, then yeah that's a great thing to focus on, I wish I had focused on it more when I was younger. If you're a human Hungry Ghost whose primary regret will be dying without the biggest number next to your name, well, maybe regret minimization isn't quite as helpful.