Ever since I watched him on “American Idol,” I’ve been a great fan of Adam Lambert. For the first time in my life, I can listen to his album over and over without tiring of his music. One of the tunes I really enjoy is “I’m a Sleepwalker,” and it ends with the stark phrase, “Get me out of this dream!” So often, when you’re struggling hardest with midlife issues, you want to scream those words to high heaven: Get me out of this dream! What once seemed like the answer to prayer has turned on you and you wake up one day to find that you’re living a nightmare, although nothing as really changed all that much . . . only you have changed.
Why do dreams turn into nightmares, and even your ‘dreams come true’ have morphed into situations that you wish you could escape from, if only you knew how? How did Cinderella suddenly change into the wicked stepmother, and the handsome prince one day show up as the troll under the bridge? The answer to that question lies in the nature of dreams, in human nature, and in the difficulty we all have in changing our minds. Midlife is simply that moment on our journey when the rose-colored glasses are ripped off our faces and we’re forced to look reality in the face without the gauze and soft-focus we’ve become accustomed to seeing it all through. How you navigate the midlife transition is all about how well you’re able to sustain yourself through a big dose of harsh reality. Today, I’d lke to offer a spoonful of sugar to help that medicine go down (thank you, Mary Poppins).
First, the nature of dreams. Your dreams are simultaneously the product of your imagination and a creative stimulus. “I see things that have never been,” says your imagination, “and ask, ‘Why not?’” Life would be incredibly boring and stale if you had no dreams of something different and better. The greatest tragedy that could befall a human would be to live a life of such despair that s/he lost the ability to dream. Dreams are truly God’s gift to you, allowing you to see fresh, creative possibilities where you had never seen them before. Rich dreams bring with them an adrenaline rush that surges within you when you suddenly realize an exciting possibility you may never have seen before. Adrenaline rushes are amazing, but they lead us head-first into a collision with our human nature.
To a certain extent, our human existence is infused with the ‘disease of more.’ Without adequate self-knowledge and self-control, your first impulse after having a delightful experience is to ask yourself, “How can I do more of this? When can I do this again?” Without proper training, we humans tend never to be able to enjoy fully a pleasurable experience and to experience satisfaction. “I can’t get no satisfaction” isn’t about a lack of anything outside of yourself; it’s all about your capacity to live in — and to enjoy — the moment without being concern with what came before or what’s coming afterward. Satisfaction, contentment, and serenity are gifts that only you are able to give yourself by learning to accept that the trials and joys of the moment are enough in and by themselves.
Human nature — our old nemesis the ‘ego’ — wants to spoil the experience by getting you to focus on making the experience last, or recreating it, or even surpassing it as quickly as possible. People tell us that, if you’ve got one foot in the past, and one foot in the future, you’re pooping on the present. If your experience of the present is poop, it’s no wonder you want out of this dream!
As time passes, I come to appreciate more and more the incredible truth that Buddhist monks teach through the practice of the mandala. Creating a mandala takes incredible planning, design, cooperative teamwork, and an attention to detail beyond what most of us can achieve. The incredible colors and patterns, laid out almost one brilliantly-colored grain of sand at a time, take your breath away. Untold hours are spent in creating detailed imaginings, which are then brought to life in a vision-blurring, muscle-cramping execution. And, when it is completed, and every grain of sand is in perfect alignment, one monk sweeps his arm across the whole and, together, they carry the remains down to a stream and pour the formless streaks of colored sand into a flowing stream. Why? What’s the lession?
These monks are teaching us about our dreams. They are beautiful. They are exciting. The stimulate and motivate, and then they are gone! The lesson that you and I must learn on a daily basis consists in this: dreams and their execution are ephemeral. When you’re in the throes of a dream, it can seem to be the most wonderful and most exciting experience imaginable. You get into trouble only when you confuse the dream (the invitation) with the reality. So long as you remain locked in the dream, you deprive yourself of the capacity to see the reality in its fullness: an experience that always surpasses expectations. In terms of the mandala, the gift is discovered in the experience of creation, destruction, and recreation, not in the product.
What, then: should you give up living your dream? Not at all! Your dreams bring you the opportunities that provide life with its motivation, richness, and direction. Your job, however, like the Buddhist monks’, is to learn to let go of the dream and embrace the reality. Sure, you will experience pain as your experiences grow, arise, and depart again. There’s a sadness as what once was a brilliant pattern floats away in the stream. But the pain that you experience as you embrace the ebb and flow of life will be far less than that you will bring upon yourself by clinging stubbornly to a worn-out dream. You don’t need heaven’s help to “Get me out of this dream!” . . . you need only change your mind and accept that the dreams that you’re so tempted to cling to are holding you back from the dreams that are yet to come.
The only skill you need to bring you contentment is to look at whatever is before you — be it a dream or a reality — and to be able to say to yourself with full appreciation: “This, too, shall pass.” Of all the lessons that midlife has to teach you, that one, perhaps, hold the key to your unimaginable future. Embrace it, if you are wise!
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown
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