On Dreamshaping: When Staying the Course Means Hitting the Iceberg

Mark McNease

How many times have we kept doing something because we were convinced it would have the result we wanted if we just kept doing it? We stayed the course despite possible detours or course corrections because it felt safer and more familiar to trudge ahead, even though the ground we walked on got softer and muddier and harder to free ourselves from.

Jobs are a good example of this. Relationships, too. We plow ahead, ignoring warnings and our own deep understanding that this work or this person is not helping us live the life we want. It doesn’t have to be a partner, either. It can be a friend or family member whose world view is so at odds with ours that we’re better off wishing them well in our hearts and putting them out of our lives.

The dreams we live are often furnished with things we should sell off, figuratively speaking, from career choices to infatuations of one kind or another, and definitely those things we hold onto most obstinately. We grip them as if letting go will diminish us, or leave us feeling lost, alone or afraid. In those cases, we become like the ship whose captain refuses to change direction despite being told there’s an iceberg in our path. The flashing signals were there, yet we steered straight ahead as if we could avoid collision with reality by running it over!

Sometimes staying the course is exactly what we should not do. The consequence of changing direction is coming face-to-face with our fears: fear that there won’t be another job, fear that telling someone our truth will get us turned away, fear that opportunity has passed us by and we might as well stay with what we know, even when what we know leaves us dissatisfied and unchallenged.

I’ve hit a few icebergs in my lifetime. I’ve gripped the steering wheel and refused to detour, certain the road I was on was better than the one I couldn’t see. Somehow I’m still here, and you will be, too. Even if it just means finding the currents we sail in and going with them. It’s worth the risk of discovering happiness instead of a sunken feeling at the bottom of an unrealized dream.

Dreamshaping: On Shaping Reality and Living Our Dreams. Copyright MadeMark Publishing