The Purpose

When dreams and reality collide, we’re often left with one big pile of happy stinking joy.  Seriously, a humongous pile.  So, what exactly do I mean?  Some people actually achieve their dreams; not many, but some.  The rest of us settle, or wait, or settle for the fact that were put on this planet to wait.  What are we waiting for?  We’re waiting for our dreams to come true.  Why are we settling?  Because we are terrified that if we actually try to accomplish our dreams we will fail… and if we fail at our dreams, what do we have left?  So, we settle and we wait and we are envious of those jerks who actually accomplish their dreams.  Half the time we can’t even figure out what our stinking dreams are!

Oh, did I mention that we justify?

• Man, I really want to start my own business… but I need to wait until I’m financially secure.  (people who haven’t accomplished their dreams are rarely ever going to be financially secure)
• Wow, I really want to go back to college and major in something that will lead to a career which doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out every morning on my way to work;  but I’m too old to go back to school, and I’ve got to worry about how I’m going to put my kids through college, and money is a little tight, so I guess wanting to gouge my eyes out every morning is something I will just have to deal with.  (education does not guarantee happiness or success… it never has and it never will… trust me)
• I really want to write a novel, I’ve got all kinds of good ideas for a story, and my writing isn’t bad, but I need to reach a point in my life where I have more free time to devote to my writing.  (the only time you will ever have enough perceivable free time to try to break into writing as a career is when you are dead…  you can’t write when you’re dead… this also goes for exercising to get in shape or lose weight, learning a new skill, volunteering in your community, and just about anything that would be an addition to your schedule… although you will definitely lose weight when you are dead but not in an attractive kind of way… just ask Nicole Richie… I believe she has died multiple times)
• I really want to start my own blog, but I need to wait until I actually become an expert at something.  No one wants to read a blog from some jerk who isn’t an expert at something. (even if you are an expert at something… which I am not… there is a really good chance that there is already someone who is more of an expert at your area of expertise than you are who already has a blog… this should not discourage you… there can never be too many choices from which to gain knowledge or be intelligently entertained)

We settle, or we wait, or we settle to wait.  It’s as if we’re waiting for the lottery of life to suddenly hand us a jackpot.  Look at that, no effort and all of a sudden all of our dreams have come true!  Seriously, can we be any more ignorant than we usually are?  Please don’t answer that question… I’m trying to muster a little faith in humanity:)  The major problem most of us run into with the settle-wait-hope approach is that given time, heat, and pressure, “settle-wait-hope” tends to morph into “stew in disgruntled bitterness”.  No matter how blessed we are or how great the family and friends we surround ourselves with are (this is the “happy” and “joy”), we still have that big pile of STINK surrounding us because we haven’t realized that personal dream.

I turn 40 later this year (which scares the crap out of me) and feel like I may be on the verge of a mid-life crisis.  I have a job I don’t hate, my friends are encouraging, and a wonderful wife and kids who make life worth living are living their lives by my side.  Yet somehow, the mild stink in my life has rapidly turned into a horrendous stench and I often find it difficult to breath.  Thus, a blog?!?

I have had more than my fair share of meaningless, dead-end jobs.  I know a little about a lot but a lot about nothing.  I’m probably not the ideal sort of person to try to start a blog.  However, I am searching for my dream (whatever that may be) and I figure this may be a start… not a good start, but a start.  I am hoping that by posting on this site a couple of times a week I can start to figure out what my dream is.  Of course, there will be a lot of complaining too, because those of us who have not realized our dreams tend to be cynical gripers.  I’m looking for input.  I’m looking for direction.  I know that some Joe or Jane off the street commenting on a blog is not going to open my eyes to some magical world of self-fulfillment (or maybe he or she will), but dialog is always good.  Good dialog is a great way to open one’s eyes to new ideas, and new ideas tend to lend themselves to the beginning of the fulfillment of dreams… or at least this is what I keep telling myself:)

I am by no stretch of the imagination a cheerleader.  “Motivation” is not one of my stronger traits.  By following this blog, you are in no way going to be enlightened or find a new more positive way to look at the world (or maybe you will).  You will not be persuaded to search out your own dream (I pray that you will).  Entertainment is unlikely (but possible).  Crap… you might as well go to one of my links and find a real blog to follow that will teach you something (but you could hang out with me as well and maybe… just maybe, at the very least, you’ll get an occasional chuckle following the mid-life ranting of Adventurer Rich on the adventure of everyday life in small-town America while he attempts to prevent life from just passing him by).

Are you up for the adventure?