I Didn’t Dream Big, You Should

I crested the top of the hill, gasping for air, legs screaming in pain.  My cycling GPS tracker beeped to show my time.  It said 3:37.  Holy crap….  After a minute or two to catch my breath and get my heart rate down, I let out a primal scream.  Yeeeeeesss! 

I just set my personal best on the most notorious hill of our regular race circuit – for the third time this year.  I remember breaking the 4-minute mark on the hill in 2019 before the pandemic.  Going under four minutes on this hill is a big deal, it’s when the super fast riders start looking at you as a real competitor.  After that ’19 season my buddy Matt said “I know you can do it faster, I bet you could chop another 10 – 15 seconds off your time.” 

“15 seconds? No way” I thought. 

Matt’s a killer, a former sponsored athlete.  I’m always chasing him, he makes me suffer.  His best on the hill was 3:39.  It seemed unreachable.

But here I am a year and a half later and I bested his time by 2 seconds.  Matt believed in me, but I didn’t.

I don’t dream enough.

 

Follow What?

“Follow your dreams.”  That might be one of the most cliche things to say to a kid or young person.  One of it’s inherent flaws is that it assumes the person has dreams in which to follow.  

I really never had any dreams to follow. 

It saddened me a bit to type that sentence, but it’s true.  A volatile and often toxic childhood sent me clear messages that I wouldn’t really amount to much.  Those messages often came directly verbalized, and that’s not a great thing to say to a kid.  But that was my experience. 

On top of the family situation my physical surroundings were that of inner-city Baltimore, a sea of poverty and crime ridden dreariness.  It’s hard for a young and impressionable brain to dream about the future when the world seems to be screaming “don’t bother kid, you ain’t going nowhere”. 

So for me, dreaming big of a future life or career was just not even a concept.  Where I grew up you just looked at things individually and tried to survive.  Don’t get killed today… where can I score some beer for tomorrow… and so on.

 

Money Dreams I Never Dreamt

I’m long long past financial independence.  I have a massive cushion, plus a burgeoning business and a guaranteed pension.  From afar, one could look at my situation and assume it’s a position that a young person would dream to achieve.  I agree. 

I never dreamt it though.  Of course that doesn’t negate what I’ve achieved or make it any less of a desirable position to be in.  But I’ve lately been contemplating the fact that I tend not to dream big about the future, and wondering what I would have dreamt about achieving when I was young if I were pressed to do it. 

Here’s what I think I would have come up with.  

Dream Big – A nice cushy job and a comfortable house.  Financial stability and retirement at 65.

Most Likely Outcome – A hard job but one that pays the bills.  Financial survival, but not enough to escape Baltimore.  Most likely have to work past 65.

Worst Case Scenario – A life similar to those I grew up around.  Job insecurity, no money saved, always close to financial ruin.  Having to support family members in similar situations.  Get shot and killed (it is Baltimore after all….)

 

Health Dreams I Never Dreamt

Another facet of life I’ve excelled at is health.  But my success only came after being overweight or obese for most of my life. 

Even though I loved sports I never played on an organized sports team, ever.  No little league baseball, nothing in high school or college.  As cliche as it sounds, I was indeed often (not every time) the last kid picked when lining up teams for dodge ball or kickball in grade school.  And yes those situations are as humiliating as you’d think they’d be. 

I didn’t dream big about being a famous athlete like most boys, or even being a mediocre one.  What would I have dreamt as a young person if asked in the arena of health and sports?

Dream Big – To be thin or at least normal weight.  To maybe make a competitive recreation team in any sport one day

Most Likely Outcome – Struggle with my weight my whole life.  Try to achieve something notable in any arena, maybe succeed (run a marathon, climb a big mountain)

Worst Case Scenario – Be overweight or obese my whole life.  Die way too young as a result.

As you can see, for both my career and my health I would have had dreams that in reality I’ve exceeded.  Which gets me thinking… 

 

Did I Underperform?

I’ve accomplished a lot in life without dreaming big.  I naturally wonder if I could have done more with stars to shoot for, stars that I launched in the sky.

Many of my cycling friends dream of winning races and in some cases becoming professionals.  The closest I came to that was in this post I wrote in 2019, right around the time my buddy Matt told me I could do better on our racing hill.  I wrote:

I’m throwing it down now – 2019 Dave, prepare to get your ass handed to you by Future Dave.  Go ahead and eat your slice of humble pie now and get used to the taste of your own tears dude, because I’m coming!

That sounds like I was dreaming, but if I’m being honest I was “blog-fronting”.  Sure I meant those lines when I wrote them for the post, but I failed to believe them deep inside and translate them into real tangible dreams of getting better. 

And I know why.  It’s because deep inside I still had doubts.  As I look back on my life whenever something good happened I tended to think “this is as good as it’s gonna get, be happy”.  I can only assume that habit arose from my childhood trauma and the toxic relationships I endured.  It’s hard to change thoughts and behaviors that were programmed in your brain at an early age.

Regardless, the bottom line is that 2021 Dave is putting 2019 Dave to shame.  My business keeps growing and I’m smashing all of my cycling personal records.  The smack-talk I laid down in 2019 came true even though I was mostly putting up a false facade.

I didn’t dream big, yet I still achieved financial independence and did pretty well for myself.  So now I’m working real hard to learn to dream about a better future, in every aspect of life.

Dreaming creates a mindset of abundance, and possibility.  If I succeeded without dreams, how far can I go with them?

Your turn – Do you tend to be a dreamer?  If so do you dream of financial independence?