You are your dream. Your dream is you.

We love dreams. We love dreamers. We idolise them.

“Man I wish I could have the ambition and drive like you do”, “Girl you have big dreams, you’re going places!”

Going where?

We idolise dreams. We also idealise them.

Take this video:

Doesn’t it just make you want to get up, go out there and do something, something for real? If it does, stop reading this. Go out there and do that thing. But come back here if something doesn’t sit quite right.

The video takes the stance that an idea takes hold of you, its a nice metaphor, but not correct. The problem is the idea being separate to you. You do not have an idea. You do not have a dream. A dream doesn’t even have you. You are your dream. They are one and the same. In every waking moment you are living out the dream which is you.

Think of yourself as a tree. You started off as a seed (or something like that) and you are growing. If you were to just leave your ‘tree’ to its own devices, it might end up growing into something beautiful, but instead, most of us start trimming at it. Cutting away the branches we don’t like, redirecting it, maybe we uproot it and put it somewhere else in the garden. Perhaps we give up on it altogether and try to grow a new one, maybe we go down to the hardware store to get a different species entirely.

It’s been done before, I’ll tell you that. So, while everyone’s busy manipulating their tree, there’s a few individuals who are perfectly happy with how theirs is progressing. There might be a few strange looking branches but overall, its healthy and seems to be growing very well.

I’m talking about people here remember. So the idea is you were once a seed, maybe a redwood seed, maybe of a mango tree, maybe for a bunch of flowers. Whatever seed you’ve been given, all are just as necessary and important in the world: the redwood to give shade to animals and shrubs below, the mango tree is for fruit, the flowers to look pretty and smell nice and make us happy.

Problems come when flowers start trying to be redwoods, or redwoods mango trees. The flowers are jealous of the ginormous tree next to them. Or perhaps they don’t even know they are a flower! They do everything in their power to be as tall as the redwood. Maybe they climb up the mountain to be planted at the top. There, now they’re as tall as the redwood. But then it dies becauses its so cold, and there’s no nutrients. At the end of the day, the flowers are there to be smelt and enjoyed, the redwood is there to weather the storms for the smaller more frail shrubs. I digress.

So, if you get the idea here, everyone has their own purpose, that they were born with. It is everyones job to fulfill that purpose, to be that purpose, absolutely, and not to manipulate it, or try to be a redwood when they are a flower.

To continue with this metaphor, we might see someone who has grown into a tall redwood, and we weigh up our options to get to where they are. We decide that the solution is to climb their tree, or get a ladder.

The thing is, we’re not supposed to climb to reach our dreams. It might work, but it’s just going to leave us wanting to go higher. That’s how a lot of people think you achieve your dreams, and people are doing it all day everyday, but its not. They are chasing someone elses dreams. They’re climbing up someone else’s tree.

If you’ve heard of the terms 0>1 and 1>n this might click for you. 0>1 is a company doing something that no-one’s ever done before. 1>n is trying to do something someone else has done, but better. Both might be ‘successful’, but one is a pointless, soulless endeavour.

Think of 0>1 as the Internet, Einstein with the theory of relativity, Apple with the Mac, Google with their search.

Think of 1>n as Samsung with the Galaxy, actually pretty much any Chinese business, any news site (bar a few like Vice, Genius) and — pause please — productivity & travel blogs (sigh).

Now 1>n companies might be successful, but they follow different steps to become successful. They climb a ladder. People imitate the actions of visionaries and innovators thinking thats how things work.

As we know innovation is connecting the dots, so we will always be combining things that already exist, but combining, not copying.

That is what innovation is, making something new out of what you know, what you have experienced. SO. What is inside you? No, what is you? What have you experienced, what do you know that no-one else does?

You shouldn’t want to be a singer, rather have a song you want to sing.

You shouldn’t want to be an actor, or even be in a movie, you should want to bring a character to life.

Rather than writing a book, have a story you want to tell.

That’s how this works.

Rather than being an inventor, have an invention.

Are you getting it?

If you don’t think you can sing a song, rather than be a singer, or have a story to tell rather than the more clear option of writing a book, try a bit harder. Go a bit deeper. Everyone’s got something within them. Everyone was once a seed, but not everyone becomes a tree. But you will be, because now you know.

You have something inside you that you have to offer.

I know you do.

If you don’t find it you will never be truly happy, and you will end up filling your life with a job(puke), goals(stress), vacations(from life?), entertainment, or just copying someone else.

You are better than copying someone else. You are better than dreaming within the confines of reality — in the end life is a dream isn’t it? It can be anything, literally anything. If you have thought it, that means its possible. Despite what we might think, your brain can’t produce something of its own volition if its never seen that thing. You are always combining things and forming ideas from what you have seen or heard or done. What does that mean? Whatever you have thought is possible because if you hadn’t thought it, it wouldn't be.

So dream as big and wild as you can. Whatever you want to make, it is possible. But remember, you are tree that is growing. What you want to make or be, is in fact you. Just by growing into who you are meant to be, you will make the things and do the things you were meant to. You don’t make a tree from stacking up blocks of wood, it won’t grow leaves, and it will rot away, in fact it just won’t be a tree. Thats just not how this works. Ok?

If your dream is any way limited by what is already, meaning you have to jump through someone else’s hoops, climb a ladder, or the hoops of what is and isn’t possible, your dream is too small, you aren’t dreaming big enough, actually you aren’t dreaming right.

You are better than that. You don’t have to prove yourself. Dream bigger than the limitations that exist in the ‘real’ world, dream better, in fact dream that you are already there, because you are! You are and always have been. You are a tree that started off as a seed. It was a seedling, and now its a shrub, or bigger. Unless you stunt it or kill it, that tree isn’t going anywhere but up!

I know people who have dreams like “I want to own a private jet, and my own island, and party every night in Ibiza”, wait is that person me?

Maybe you will somehow by fate end up one night partying in Ibiza, maybe not, but that will just be another part of your life, that is, growing your tree, that is, being you, whether or not it happens is irrelevant. If it happens, good. If it doesn’t, good.

And whats one of the best things about being and doing what you were meant to be? No stress. No goals. No bullshit. You can just be yourself. You can relax. You’re not going anywhere, you don’t need to be. But you’re not stationary either. Remember? Your growing everyday.

You’re enjoying every minute of what you’re doing. Are you writing a story? Writing a play? Making music? Making a game? Making a movie? Are you relaxing? Are you growing? These are examples of things smart people do. Famous people. Rich people. Happy people. They do what they want and what they know. They are themselves, their seeds, in every way. Who they are, who they spend time with, what they do. They are mango seeds that grew into mango trees, they are redwood seeds that grew into redwoods, they are seeds of a flower that grew into flowers.

Do you think Bob Marley ever aspired to being Rich and Famous? Well I’ll tell you, he didn’t.

Most peoples ‘dreams’ are just an arbitrary list of goals, to reach an arbitrary place in the future. Your dreams aren’t somewhere else, at the end of a great big to-do list, dependent on someone else’s whim. Your dreams are inside you, your dream is you and it will only stop growing if you stop it.

“You are the universe experiencing itself.”

This quote is from Carl Sagan, who is in fact the universe, as you and I are, so actually the quote is from all of us. Stop interfering with what you were meant to be by thinking you should be anything or anywhere else. You are the universe experiencing itself, you are your dreams, growing bigger everyday. Get out of the way!

Your seed has brought you to where you are now, you have your own unique story, no one else has the exact same one. So stop snipping off the branches and setting up ladders. Stop thinking so hard. And stop trying to bloody please people! What you were meant to be will come out if you let it.

Let it.

You are the universe experiencing itself.

You are your dream. Your dream is you.