In Food For Thought, Playlists

Food For Thought: Daydreaming

Do you know this feeling, when you’re sitting somewhere, maybe at work, you’re supposed to do a task but you simply can’t concentrate and your mind wanders off. All of a sudden you find yourself in a totally different place, far away from here and now. For a brief moment you feel entirely relaxed. You’re daydreaming.

This is the scenario I’ve found myself in very often lately. It’s nothing I can control, it just happens. Admittedly, I’m a very vivid dreamer at night. To me, that’s a beautiful gift, because I know some people hardly ever dream. I love to be able to dream, and it’s nothing that unsettles me. Quite on the contrary, studies say that an increase in the frequency of dreams is usually a good thing. Dreams become more rapid when cognitive growth has happened or is happening. Your mind knows you’re now capable of resolving issues or puzzles that were once a challenge, and is giving you an opportunity to work towards a higher understanding of yourself and your environment. To me, that’s all I’m striving for: Understanding myself, my environment, and eventually life.

However, the recurring process of daydreaming is fairly new to me, and got me wondering why my mind is drifting away so much lately: Am I too focussed on work? Am I stuck in routine? Do I need to change something?

It’s no secret that I am seeking a life that extends past the daily tasks that often seem to clutter our existence. When I started looking for ways on how to create the life I aspire to live, I came to the conclusion that self-employment would probably be the best choice for me. It offers me to work from anywhere I want, I don’t have any superior who would tell me what to do, it offers flexible working hours, it offers freedom. Or at least that’s what I thought it would. In theory, all of this is true. In reality, I could work from anywhere I want, however, most of the meetings with my clients are restricted to a certain area. There is indeed no superior who is telling me what to do, but there are quite restricted briefings I have to adhere to for some projects. And lastly, the flexible working hours usually extend into a 12 h day.

All of this is a very exaggerated description of my status quo, and might sound very negative. Truth is, I still wouldn’t change my choice of being self-employed, and for now I can honestly not see myself in a regular office job anymore (maybe that attitude will change one day, time will tell. I’m definitely not excluding this option forever). I can honestly say I love what I’m doing, more and more every day.

What I’m trying to say is: We are all responsible for our own life and how we live it. Everything is a choice. Most of us even are in the lucky position of having too many choices. The crucial thing is not to forget that it’s okay to change direction when we feel we need to. Of course adult life requires responsibility, there are bills we have to pay and there is a certain lifestyle we get used to once we start earring money after basically spending our early twenties more or less financially broke. And of course we also want to earn money, because money will eventually help us to fulfill our dreams. No matter if it’s the dream of having our own house one day, or if it’s the dream of traveling around the world, living like a nomad, and exploring as many places as possible. Some financial cushion is needed for most of those aspirations, no matter how hard we try to deny it. Maybe I find myself diving into daydreams because I’d like to travel more. Maybe I’m just a little tired of staring into the bright screens that light up my working hours. Maybe I’m just craving a little more “real life” away from those screens. Maybe I should put some of the money I usually place into savings into seeing more of the world. Maybe I already know, deep down in myself, that I want to change the direction I’m headed. Maybe that’s just a natural development, as you grow as a person. Maybe 2018 simply is a year of new beginnings for me, yet again.

What I want to emphasize is that I think life should be an adventure. It’s too easy to neglect our numbered days. So whenever we feel stuck in a routine and are finding ourselves daydreaming a lot, perhaps we should start wondering why those daydreams occurs, and what our subconscious mind wants to tell us. Maybe we’re just bored, or maybe we just need a new experience to satisfy our hunger for adventure. Perhaps this experience can be as simple as returning to ballet class, or as enormous as relocating the center of your life to a new city. Whatever it is you’re currently daydreaming about, perhaps it’s time for you to give in and let this day dream become your reality. And perhaps, so should I.