Go to a dream home and we’ll find a neighbor with a dreamier home.
Land that dream job and we’ll find colleagues working with a more interesting scope/better manager/cross functional team.
Get that wonderful car and we’ll find someone we know with a superior model.
Our default state is to normalize stuff we might have been dreaming about for the longest time and then look around for upgrades.
Beware that default state.
Happiness follows gratitude – not the other way around.
We adjust our expectations from life at record speed. That old dream, once achieved, becomes commonplace in our eyes. So, we move on to the next dream.
In high school, I dreamed of going to college abroad – ideally in Singapore for a variety of reasons. When that worked out, it became “no big deal” in no time because most of the folks I spent time with shared that reality. This happened at the next step and the one after that. Similarly, 9 years ago, just writing a long form blog post every day was a nod to my aspirational self. When that began to happen, I wanted to write better. And, when I felt I was writing better, my mind started wandering toward other things.
This is, of course, an endless cycle. Assuming you chose to work at it, unless you had a specific, incredibly low probability dream, you’ve probably done a decent job at getting to what you want to do and being who you want to be. Until that old dream became commonplace and you just began focusing on the next one.
It is important to to invest in tomorrow. But, life isn’t all about tomorrow either. As you think about how you’re doing today, spend time on that old dream. You are probably doing things and being someone that were once just aspirations. And, that’s a big deal.
Dreams do come true. It’s just a shame if we end up not appreciating that fact as much as we should.
So, every once a while, take the time to remember the days when you prayed for what you have now.
A Learning a Day 