Setting a vision for my life. I’ve been thinking about this, but all I come up with are questions: How does that work? What does it look like? Where do I even start?
I’m going with my dreams. They’re what we want most in the world and the things that keep us aiming true through all of life’s roadblocks and detours. They’re the roots of the meaning our lives have, and if the vision we have for those lives is to mean anything at all, I think our dreams need to be the marrow in its bones.
But it seems to me that having a dream and setting a vision for my life is not the same. My dream is the thing I want most of all. My life vision is how I get there and what it looks like when I do. It’s not my dream itself, but how that dream comes true, the route I take to find it and where those travels take me in the end.
Because a dream can come true in all kinds of ways. There’s no set path to any one destination. The metaphor of life as a road isn’t really right at all. It’s more like a maze, and we’ve all got to find the best way through it we can.
Our vision should be the light that keeps us from getting lost and makes sure we grow into the people we want to become as we choose among its twists and turns, and navigate the dark places that are waiting. It’s how we find the best way to our dream so that it looks just as we’ve always wanted it to when we finally arrive.
When we close our eyes and imagine that we’ve made it, our life vision is the thing we see. To get there, we have to start with a dream and slowly hang the details on it to complete the picture. Which brings me back to the biggest question of all…
When there’s no end to your dreams, how do you know which ones to set your sights on?
