Tag Archives: following your dreams

Can brutal honesty interfere with a goal, disrupt a plan and discourage a dreamer?

31 Thursday May 2018

Posted by in Daily Life, Finding Me, Food

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“Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.” – Lao Tzu

A very good friend of mine is developing a product that he hopes to sell in stores very soon. It is a food item and he asked me to taste a prototype. Before tasting it I told him that I was going to be brutally honest. He insisted on it.

While sitting in his car last night and while he anxiously watched I proceeded to taste it. First I smelled it, looked at it, and then took an initial bite. There wasn’t really much aroma to it. I took a few more bites and started writing down my thoughts about it. How did I feel about the taste, texture, sweetness?

Even before I finished my evaluation he started reading my findings. It was not all positive. I found that I couldn’t really detect a flavor – not that it had one to be detected. He mentioned this will be an original flavor and then with time there will be flavor varieties.

I also thought it needed to be sweeter. I am one of those people that likes to taste salt if something is savory and sugar if something is sweet. I also thought that it left somewhat of a coating in my mouth and tongue and perhaps a bit of an aftertaste.

Even with all that said it was not as bad as I thought it would be. I am not a fan of this category of food anyway. While it didn’t offend me taste wise it also didn’t excite me, but none of the items in that product line do.

“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
―Langston Hughes

Later on while I am in bed trying to go to sleep I started thinking about my criticism of his product. He has been working on this for years. How would I feel to hear all that about something I was working on?

I was honest. I am proud of that fact, but is there such a thing as too much honesty? I could be wrong, very wrong.  I started second guessing myself.  This is very subjective.

It could dishearten him. What if my opinion gets him to lose his determination? I would hate for someone to change a winning formula because of me.  Or worst, to give up on their dreams because of me.

I also didn’t want to lie and say I enjoyed something I didn’t.

This morning I wrote him. I told him that maybe I was too harsh. I have food issues and his customer base will be the ones that see food as fuel and not as pleasure as I do. I told him that he and his dreams are important to me and he should follow his gut, heart and dreams.

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” – Paulo Coelho

He was kind in his reply. He said I was overthinking this. He said that he wants this product to attract the masses, especially the people that are not concerned with their nutrition – the ones that need it the most – according to him. He thanked me for my feedback and said there will be more tasting in the future.

He added: “If you choose to stay up and barely sleep thinking of me you can certainly do so. I find it very flattering!”

It got me thinking of dreams and the determination that takes to follow them. I appreciate those people that have a passion and go after it. I envy them. Specially the ones that get criticized and get no after no.  It takes passion, love, heart, and a thick skin.

What about my dreams?  I am floundering, toying with this and that while the days go by. Where is my passion? Did it show up and I didn’t recognize it? Or is it still coming?

Once the product is in production I will let everyone know what it is.

“When you know someone’s dream you look at that person differently—with more tenderness, respect, familiarity, sympathy, and generosity than before. Look at everyone you meet this week and actively think to yourself, “I wonder what their dreams are?” – Danielle LaPorte

The importance of dreaming and believing!

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Daily Life, Finding Me

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I am the Queen of Unfinished projects. I start everything, often at the same time and then they remain unfinished. Why?

I often say I lack focus. It is obvious, if I had focus I would buckle down and finish all I started.

I often, then, think that what I lack is not focus, but planning.  Perhaps if I wrote a plan down. After all one of my favorite speakers, Steve Maraboli says: “If you have a goal, write it down. If you do not write it down, you do not have a goal – you have a wish.”

But I write things down.  I am also the queen of making lists.  I take a certain pleasure out of putting items in a to do list and then crossing them off as I do them.  Ok, I now need to confess a secret: I some times will add items I have already done to the list only for the pleasure of crossing it off – that is a little mental, right?

But simply making a list is different from making a plan or listing goals.  A list is simple, such as : do laundry, take book backs to the library, call a friend.  A goal is different, I cannot just write down:  become a doctor.  I have to list the steps and set about accomplishing that goal.  I cannot achieve that goal with the performance of only one task.

So I keep going on and on to anyone who would listen that lately I lack focus and I lack planning and most importantly I lack goals. And I go on telling people how I was so focused when I first arrived in this country.  I didn’t let anything deter me from my goals.

What has changed in the past 30 years since then?

Today, on Martin Luther Kings’s Day I realized a big thing. I don’t need a plan, I don’t need clear goals (I didn’t really have any set clear goals back then, I had a dream), all I need is a dream and the belief that I can accomplish that dream.

So I came to the realization that what I lack lately is dreaming and believing. People are different,  I am the type of person that doesn’t need goals, I need dreams, I need fairy-tales.

When I first arrived in this country I didn’t have clear goals, I had dreams! And I had a very powerful weapon on my side: Belief! I believed it in my goals no matter how unattainable they seemed at that time!

I believed that God would take care of me no matter what!  I believe that good things come to people that do good!  I believed in working hard and being rewarded for it.  I believe in improving myself each day!  I believed that I would be okay no matter what!

And guess what?  My life today is a combination of all my beliefs.  I think that in the past 30 years I lost the naivete and innocence that I had when I first arrived.  I am smarter, more cultured.  I now speak English, I now have a great job, I now have money.

Perhaps dreams are the stuff of the desperate.  When you don’t have anything else on your side, you dream!  I arrived with no money, no job, no English, no clear goals, no idea at all of what I would be doing.  I struggled, I struggled a lot.  I heard a lot nos, and I had the disbelief of friend and still I marched on.  I arrived with only one dream:  a better life.  And that can have different meanings to different people, to me meant being able to go to college, getting a good paying job, buying a home, becoming legal in this country.  I did all that, I have all that now and even more.

Am I dreamless lately? perhaps a bit, or perhaps I just have focused my energy into one specific dream, finding a partner.  And that is going well, or bad, depending on how you look at it.

So, this post that is very representative of my life – constructive chaos! While writing I am checking and chatting with people from E-Harmony and POF.  I am organizing my underwear drawer (why do I need 40 bras, when I only use 3 or 4?). I am taking stuff from storage and taking stuff to storage.  I am chatting with my accountant on some work issues (and also with the computer guy, because the connection to work is not that great).  I had breakfast.  I started watching Braveheart.  I made lists of what I need to accomplish today and during the week.  I am indeed the Queen of starting projects and by the grace of God some will actually get finished.

I have been incapable of finishing a post in the past 10 days.  I have started many on favorite subjects, such as dealing the troubles with my car – how that is teaching me patience, the blessing of having an aunt that is turning 106 years old -what am I doing to age gracefully, my dates with the math teacher – how I push people away, etc, etc

So this time I am going to do something totally out of character for me, I am going to publish this post without being finished.  This post is without a clear thought and not what I want to present you with.  I would need to read it a few more times, and clean it up, but I fear never publishing it, like the posts before.  I know it will be hard for me to live with that, I know it will be even harder for you to make sense of it, but at this point I am choosing not to have another day go by without publishing a post.

What I want you to take from this post is the following: (I so hope that you are able to get something from it and not have 5 minutes that you can never get it back)

The importance of having dreams and believing you can accomplish them!

You don’t need to be organized and have a plan to accomplish things! You do need, however, to believe in that which you want to accomplish! You don’t even need clear goals. It is okay to dream of abstracts such as a better life!  All you need is to wake up in the morning and put one foot in front of the other and start working with the aim of getting that better life.

You need to work hard for what you want!  Nothing worth having and dreaming of having is free and easy.

Above all you need to believe that that which you dream of is already yours.  You are deserving of and it will be yours through hard work and perseverance. Why?  Because you have God on your side and He will never let you down.

Please don’t think I am saying don’t have any plans, that is not it.  A lot people need that structure. What I am saying is that I was too worried about making plans, establishing clear goals, etc that I forgot what is inherently inside of me, which is my ability to dream and believe in that dream.

At the end of the day we need to work with the weapons we have, and I was given a disorganized mind and a believing heart!

May this Martin Luther King Day wake in you your dormant dreams!!  Have a dream and believe in your dreams! Fight for your beliefs with the arms you have!  No matter how small or big your dream is, honor it!

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.