I feel like I am at a crossroads with an aspect of my life. To be honest I feel like I am literally straddling the fence trying to figure out which side to jump to. As Carrie told Miranda in Sex in the City, when she was faced with the decision regarding her marriage with Steve, “you can logically argue either side.” I’m no lawyer; but I run my life on logic and I can argue either side of a problem. It’s just how I’m programed. I’m not really good at taking into account my feelings, when it comes to decision making (Although I’m better than I use to be at listening to them). Being very logical, I’m not that great at “Dreaming Big” and believing in miracles. If the world was going to rely on my to invent the light bulb, I’d have stopped after 20 or so attempts and we’d still be in the dark.

I was doing some reading the other day on pursing dreams. One thing I came across discussed the benefit of pursuing dreams. It discussed a question I’ve been pondering: Is there truly value in pursuing a dream, even if you NEVER succeed? Is it worth going after something where the outcome of your efforts is constantly unknown? That statement right there is what hit home for me. I’ve been going after something in life for over 3 years and yet, I have NO FLIPPING CLUE if I’m succeeding or not. You may be wondering, how can you go after something for that long and have no metric of progress? Well, There are too many factors and moving variables. Data analysis is practically impossible.

So how to do continue to have faith that a dream is going to eventually become a reality? I feel like a fool sometimes when I continue to have hope. I feel like I’m wasting my time on something that is clearly not meant to be. When do you give in and surrender a white flag and move on? To be honest, I don’t know. I have more questions than I have answers. The biggest question I have to answer is whether or not pursuing this dream is worth the risk. Is it worth risking what I already have or worth risking what I might potentially give up?

The piece I read on this topic included this statement:

The point is NOT that the pursuit of the dream is illogical (the example in the article was not logically possible) because mathematically it can’t be achieved…the point is that by making some progress towards the goal, the possibility of reaching the goal, no matter how remote, remains just that slightly more possible….The value of a dream is NOT in its statistical likelihood of coming true. The value of a dream is in the HOPE it provides to you every day.

I guess I just struggle with having hope and getting past the illogical part. I only have a finite amount of time in the day to devote to pursuing my goals. And as a result, choices must be made.

I also struggle with this perpetual uncertainty of the outcome. I struggle with having to have HOPE for an unforeseen amount of time. How do you continue to tread water when it seems like there’s no end in sight?

With lots of help, some reflection, and a little bit of pop culture inspiration here’s what I’ve come up with. Like with any project, when you look at it in its entirety, it’s overwhelming and daunting. So as I continue to venture into perpetual uncertainty, I can only handle one day at a time. And there will be some times when I can’t even handle a day. Just like a workout regimen, there are days you need to rest. The good thing about treading water is that there’s always an option to sit back and float. There’s nothing wrong with floating. It’s a perfectly acceptable survival strategy and you can start treading water when you feel like it. For now that’s all I’ve got. For now it’s all I can do. For now it is my only foreseeable solution.

With all this talk of hope and treading water, I was reminded of one of my favorite movies, Hope Floats. Every time I come across it on TV, it’s one of those movies that I have to stop and watch. It’s about real life, struggles, it’s humbling and hilarious at the same time. It reminded me that:

If you would like to check out the article I read, you can find it here.