dream big

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2cVN6GoEdJvrLsvn9

Here are photos to accompany my initial post from yesterday. I hope they show up.  Hannah

Dreams&Doin’s oh my. I didn’t set out to drag an, um, “very well settled in his ways” person into shifting slightly toward a more earth positive way. I just wanted to plant some flowers at my apartment. I started by pulling “weeds”, because that whole debate was not relevant. I wanted to plant flowers. I planted more “mainline” at first, made it pretty, included the neighbors. Then added bee friendly. I was/am too old &tired to do power struggles so I accidentally did the lead by example method. Four years in, I’m infecting brains in 3 buildings with (unlabled) permaculture ideas. We have more pollinators & birds than the nearby park. The owner pays me a little for doing what I love. And the gick factor is reduced! I just wanted to plant flowers & feed bees from a positive (non gick) place. I’m on the shady side of 70 and could only do a little at a time, like an hour or two. It grew,   . Like a guild   .  

I wonder tho, about the Huge increase in numbers of people per population, with “brain wiring” problems; those are mostly the ones sucked-in by prosperity type seminars, preachers, promoters & shills.  
Not lazy.
Not lacking dreams or motivation.
Just have poor wiring.
Many  w/ASD, ADHD, etc.— there’s commonly a big disconnect between knowing & planning & doing…to achieving. They can have stacks of well-laid plans, & can have done some of the starting steps. But there’s a chasm; disconnect, to completing the plan.
It’s like the old cartoon showing a scientist cogitating in front of a blackboard full of tiny science/math scribbles, with an explosive-looking balloon in center, labeled “Magic happens!”  
That chasm can be insurmountable!

Also, Many are derailed by relatives’ & partners’ behaviors, or simply lack of funding & no idea how to make funding enough to start, happen.  
And, It’s common to just not know how to reduce a big dream or project into more manageable baby-steps, despite trying hard to figure some baby-steps; their steps can be disconnected & out-of-order, yet in their heads, can’t see that.

But some of the biggest blocks to implementing those prosperity, dream, & etc. seminars?
It’s learning:
…the program is a bad fit for them (like, marketing anything);
…the presenters are blowing too much repetitious hot air &/or give bad references or data; ;
…the presenters are like the proverbial “wizard behind the curtain”, lots of promises, but no substance.

I’ve encountered all kinds, & finally learned to see signs of film-flammery.
I’ve struggled to get thru that “magic happens” chasm, w/mixed results. I got fair at that when younger, but, it’s returned in old age.

Those who do not have those kinds of issues, have best likelihood of succeeding after going to seminars, & classes.
Those who have those issues.. (& it’s usually multiple kinds; people really want it bad enuf to pay for those seminars!)….
…just get derailed from their best efforts—& they look just like normal folks who should be able; they can even sound like a PhD expert, but their “best laid schemes of mice & men, gang aft agley!”.  

Dreaming isn't a problem, but the lack of imagination is.
As I dream about an idea, I only successfully make it happen after I pray about it , think about it some more and, then get my hands moving to make something happen because I am a literal idiot if I just sit there like bahhhh

Although... sometimes the only thing we can do is to have moving and emotional conversations about what we dream about, so that someday, someone can accomplish it - not necessarily ourselves...

Not everyone can accomplish everything and it's not wrong to speak our deepest desires and imaginative processes.
Call me Gen z. But the world may be changing and being regretful and full of spite is not helpful so let us DREAM!!!

I will reprise what I've mentioned before about goals such as losing weight and removing all kinds of addiction/ behaviors that run contrary to our goals. It would be nice if we could determine a goal, make a plan and have a straight trajectory to our goals from there. But that is not real life. Many times along the way, we will doubt ourselves and feel like giving up. That is normal, it is human, it should be expected: we are not robots and there are many things vying for our attention, as well as unexpected problems that crop up.
As we start the New Year, we've been tempted with delicious food, for example and "fell off the wagon", to continue with the image I started with.
The trick is a good confession to ourselves that when tempted by that second big piece of cheesecake, we totally F...up.
Guess what: We are not Gods. What makes us humans, more like Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the mountain is stubbornness/ perseverance.
Mom used to complain that I was so stubborn!. I said to her. "Mom, if a person rams his head 50 times against the wall and the wall does not give, he's stubborn. If he perseveres and tries a 51st time and the wall finally cracks, he is perseverant".
The change is that 51st time, after you have endured 50 failures.
A New Year is a good time to check on what worked, what didn't, and perhaps make some changes, perhaps persevere.
I just gained 5 Lbs. over this Christmas break, but now, I'm pumped. Like Sisyphus, I'll start all over again.
I wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year plus the stubbornness perseverance of Sisyphus.

dream + action. one alone is not effective, do both

Yes ...Dreams and visions and well praying etc etc ..all wonderful and I agree and say Yes to all of it...its just that... you know ...get it out in the works that is the challenge I have started to follow a for me working approach. Is my next 5 minutes going towards my dreams, my vision or not...suddenly I feel I can do this and I feel inspired to continue, its an obvious move forward and next 5 minutes is not out of reach!... its working pretty good for me like putting things away at once, washing the dishes at once, what ever I can do to support me in moving towards my dream. It starts with the little tings I can do in my next 5 minutes that suddenly becomes much more than 5 minutes!

Interesting conversation

I will share how I get unstuck and get going on a project that is part of the dream, that I am dreading, and have been for some time.

I say to myself “ok, I am just going out to LOOK at what this project will require.  Then I will have a better idea how to begin”

Usually I go ahead and start, if only to figure out what is first, or gather the tools and materials, but my inertia has been overcome.

The thing about dreaming planning imagining, is that in that phase I am enjoying the perfect outcome of the dream.  Everything works.  Once I move towards implementation, that all changes.  At that point I begin to discover what is involved in the process.  I have to begin altering the “perfection”.  I become limited by my skills, my tools, my budget, my strength.  For me that is a hard step, it involves losses.  And I have to face my limitations. I think for those of us who DO dream, reality can be a tough task master!

Once I understood this, it got a lot easier!  Dreams and the hard work of reality go hand in hand.  I think of the fact that humanity travels with a bi-pedal gait.  (We walk on two feet, but I love words!). Dreams are one foot, the work of reality is the other.  If we want to go anywhere, we have to walk on two feet.

Funny story:

My kindergartner was playing at a friend’s house.
The mother observed that in their game of imaginary football, our two kids on one team were playing the 49ers.
The mother asked me if there was something wrong with them that in their imaginary game, the 49ers were winning.  
“Why are they imagining themselves as losers?”

But consider it, 2 six year olds, one a child who isn’t even interested in ball playing, isn’t it easier and more exciting to imagine pro ball players completing a pass, and running the touchdown, than to complete a pass themselves?

Hard work creates change.

I love it when I see this thread bumped. It contains a big secret to life that I only began to understand in my 30s.

When young, time did not yet move for me at the speed of thought, and I did not understand that the work of good dreams takes a long time. I could see what I wished for in a mental flash, and wanted to make them happen in a flash. The fact that this didn't (and couldn't) happen was discouraging back then.

Now, time does move for me almost as fast as I can wish for something, and I understand that everything worthwhile is truly brick-by-brick. day-by-day. Education, lifestyle change, gardening, relationships--all of it is. "The good stuff takes time" and we have to buckle up and see it through, or it won't happen.

So the trick in all this is to figure out how to be cheerful in that long gap where you are working hard between the vision of the dream and its accomplishment. If you love the work that it takes to get to your dream, it's so much easier.

There are 2 lessons I wish I had understood when I was younger.  I have been fighting long term health problems and have proven over longer haul the power of nibbling away at this.  Dreams are big and as money, time and energy have allowed I have nibbled away and accomplished some amazing things.  But I have also lost many because of age, health and finances.  But I have learned as I have gone.

Lesson #1 I needed early planning for failure in health and finances.  If I had built for durability and redundancy of systems at several levels I would have accomplished less but had more to show for it now.

Lesson #2 is have a plan but be ready and willing to adapt as learning, experience, luck all come into play.


Now some lessons learned as I went.  

1.  Sharing dreams enables others to help you so you should share them some.  Do NOT be all talk and no action.  But the amount of help I have gotten for sharing is amazing.  The current solar collector came from visiting with a customer.  She had a house soon to be torn down that got me the glass.  In another case visiting with a widow got me nearly $1000 worth of planting pots and boxes.
2.  It never hurts to ask.  Being the timid introvert coming out of HS it has taken me a while to get there on this one.  Less than 3 weeks ago for example I brought home basically $2000 worth of double pane glass windows.  My cost about 3 hours getting to the right person to get permission and a bit over 4 to salvage them.  Will owe 2 friends help for their help on this too but it is doable.  Pretty good wages.
3. Never stop learning.   Now sometimes it completely messes up your plans when you learn something that completely wrecks the system you were working towards.  But the final product is nearly always better for it.
4.  keep the experiments working so you are ready when you can get the time, money, materials etc.  Right now in front of the house  I have trees started from seed, hoops of pex filled with water standing behind glass testing to see if it gets brittle in the sun, Comfrey for soil building growing at the East end, vermiculture pile, a cob brick made with 3 parts coarse sand, 1 part clay and baler netwrap as the fiber.  It has spend 3 full winters outside with almost no deterioration.  Each of those is working towards 1 or more goals.