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Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

nik.art

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Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#31

Post by hsuduebc2 »

I struggled quite a lot with this. I want to do everything, learn everything thus I ended up mastering nothing.

I've learned to play few instruments in last four years so I can jam with people but I still feel it's not enough.

As I got older I started to value relationships much more and overall became a happier person.

But still the knowledge that I never be a skilled doctor, physicist, exceptional chef, biologist, blacksmith, economist, successful entrepreneur and many more will still somehow hunt me.

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#32

Post by weakfish »

hsuduebc2 wrote: post #31

I struggled quite a lot with this. I want to do everything, learn everything thus I ended up mastering nothing. I've learned to play few instruments in last four years so I can jam with people but I still feel it's not enough. As I got older I started to value relationships much more and overall became a happier person. But still the knowledge that I never be a skilled doctor, physicist, exceptional chef, biologist,…

I highly recommend the book Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman to help cope with this anxiety

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#33

Post by shostack »

lanstin wrote: post #6

I would love to be a star ship captain in a universe with faster than light travel. Or a surgeon. But you know actual life is good and I do enjoy watching DS9 with my young adult son, Benjamin. And reading about all the other cool things. It is better to live an imperfect experience than just wish for an ideal imagined experience. And better to act wrongly than to be right but do nothing.

Also, a lot of people have dreams about a perfect idealized version of something instead of the reality. If they actually got to experience the reality they might find that they no longer hold that dream as they originally knew it.

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#34

Post by CobaltFire »

I read the article and fight with this from a different angle.

My son was diagnosed with cancer at 3, then during chemo it became abundantly clear that he had far more severe autism than we originally thought. Could have been made worse by the chemo and trauma; no real way to know.

Now my wife and I have had to give up all the dreams we had for when I retired from the military. A few good moves means that I actually retired at 40, though more modestly than I planned. But we will forever be taking care of him.

So we struggle with the unlived dreams often.

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#35

Post by jebarker »

shostack wrote: post #33
lanstin wrote: post #6

I would love to be a star ship captain in a universe with faster than light travel. Or a surgeon. But you know actual life is good and I do enjoy watching DS9 with my young adult son, Benjamin. And reading about all the other cool things. It is better to live an imperfect experience than just wish for an ideal imagined experience. And better to act wrongly than to be right but do nothing.

Also, a lot of people have dreams about a perfect idealized version of something instead of the reality. If they actually got to experience the reality they might find that they no longer hold that dream as they originally knew it.

This is so true. A few years ago I was volunteering at a running race that’s very hard to get into and many people have as a life dream. I found it kind of amusing how many people were having pity parties in the latter stages of the race despite having dreamed of getting into it for years, maybe decades.

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#36

Post by torlok »

I had the same mindset about wanting to be good at a lot of things, working on myself, not "wasting time", but now in my mid thirties I figured that if I really wanted to do something, I'd be actually doing it, and a lot of these goals boil down to "it would be cool if I was good at X", and aren't actually things I care about.

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#37

Post by cryo32 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #24
cryo32 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lwaxana is very unusual. How haven't they guessed yet?

Definitely not that one!

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#38

Post by mepian »

cryo32 wrote: post #20
jaynetics wrote: post #10

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.

Is it Tasha?

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#39

Post by SoftTalker »

smallnix wrote: post #16
renegade-otter wrote: post #15

As I always say - do what you will regret NOT doing once you are old.

I think my old self will want my younger self to have had done lots of things I don't want to do now. Future me can suck it. I'll be selfish in the moment. This is like watching videos of old folks saying: "I wish I took better care of my teeth". Right, cause thats what matters a lot to you now. The lesson to be learned is that what you want from life changes. You shouldn't prioritize the needs of a future version of…

When you get old you realize that none of it matters. You can't take those experiences with you, just as you cannot take money with you.

Re: Making peace with your unlived dreams (2023)

#40

Post by cladopa »

As someone that has done snowboarding and skying in Central Europe, the paradise of snowboarders and have been friend of profesionals, you probably don't want to be one of them.

It is one thing to go carving whenever you want, where you want because you have a good job outside it. Another totally different thing is spending all your time training. Most people will hate that.

Everybody wants to be a tennis player when they see one player raising the cup and earning millions. But a professional player spends most of her life doing extremely boring things. And only a very minority get enough money to live from the sport.

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