It’s now day fifteen of the New Year. Are you still motivated and determined to make all your New Year’s Resolutions a reality or have you given up? Perhaps, you are somewhere in between being committed and quitting.
No matter where you are, one thing that you must never stop doing is dreaming about the life you want. Sadly, most adults stop dreaming before reaching puberty. Evidence of this fact is even supported by science. There is a distinct difference in REM sleep between adult humans and newborn babies.
Dreams and Creativity
As a reminder, REM sleep is the stage of sleep where humans dream and where creativity occurs. An adult spends only 20 – 25% of a night’s sleep in REM while newborn spends more than 80% of a night’s sleep in REM.[1] This means that a newborn – one who has little or no life experiences nor having had the opportunity to witness any of life’s great wonders – dreams about creating ways to make the impossible a reality four times more than one who has already witnessed impossible happening. To simplify, babies who know little and who have seen even less dream and create a world in their own mind where all things are possible and do so four times more often than you and I.
How could this be? Well, I’m glad you asked. As adults we constantly erode our ability to dream by continuing to do the things that most likely comprise our New Year’s Resolutions. We annihilate our capacity to dream and create by continuing to eat the things we eat, drinking the things we drink, smoking the stuff we smoke, living the sedentary lifestyle we live, thinking the way we think and self-inducing the stress and accompanying health and financial problems we cause from trying to keep up with the Joneses.[2] Even worse, as a society we have conditioned our children to stop dreaming earlier and earlier. Instead of believing and illustrating for our children that as the newborn thinks all things are possible, we have saddled them with ‘adult realism” – fears, fatigue and cynicism.
Adult Realism
Our “adult realism” is what will keep most of us from achieving our own New Year’s Resolutions. We are too scared to look for a new job or go back to college. We are too tired to turn off the TV and go exercise or spend time with those we love. We are too pessimistic to change our diet or believe that life can be exactly the way we want it to be. If we won’t visualize ourselves as being debt free or CEO of our own prosperous corporation how can we can’t expect much less teach our children to dream about the future they desire? If we can’t follow the blueprint to get in the best shape of our life or have great relationships, how can we make sure our children follow a roadmap that takes them on the journey where their dreams are realized?
These are but rhetorical questions. We obviously can’t do these things for our children if we can’t/won’t do them for ourselves. This is why in a few short years under our tutelage (from newborn to teen), the child who once dreamt of being a doctor who would one day find a cure for cancer will settle for working in a factory. The child who dreamt of becoming a civil rights lawyer will instead enlist in the army not as an officer but as a private. The child who dreamt of becoming an all-time Olympic great sprinter will not run to the finish line but will instead run to the microphone to take your order when you drive through your favorite fast food restaurant. I don’t mean to imply that any and all of these jobs do not have value but I do believe they pale in comparison to the dreams, capacity and potential of the child who once spent more than 80% of every night dreaming and creating a world where everything even the impossible was possible.
I believe James Dean got it right when he said “Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” Children innately understand and do this – they dream four times more than adults and they never want to hear “wait until tomorrow”.
Please see your New Year’s Resolutions through. Don’t let your “adult realism” override your desire and willingness to be anything less than your best – the you that achievement of your New Year’s Resolution will allow you to be. If you won’t fulfill your New Year’s Resolution for yourself do it for your child. The world simply can’t afford one more child to believe and learn from the actions of an adult that dreaming and resolving to do something is a fad – a thing you and others do for a few days at the beginning of each year and then quit before it is completed.