Living our dreams

Thank you so much to all of you who have contributed to the "conversations". It is amazing to learn so many new things about friends, some of whom I have known for 30 years! I was surprised by a number of issues.

For one, most of your mothers have worked. Either I am attracting my few blog readers among friends who are trying to achieve what their mothers did as well (subconsciously, consciously, or just by chance correlation), or I haven't quite been aware just how many women in our mothers' generation already managed to combine family and work. Perhaps it really is easy, and I'm just a sole struggler, and making my life more complicated than it is? Or perhaps our mothers struggled as well, and we have not come much further in 20-30 years - and the struggle continues.

The second issue that surprised me was that a number of us have unfulfilled dreams. Some dreams are nice to remain that - dreams: thoughts and fantasies that keep our mind wondering, and offer us a feeling of alternative. And some dreams are not compatible with other dreams, or our reality, unless you are one of those concert pianist, heart surgeon, mom-of-10 geniuses.

However, I wish many of my friends would fulfill some of their dreams - just as I wish I would just pick up a paint-brush, and get going - especially now that I have some free time. There are so many among you whom I know are so incredibly talented. In singing, playing music, painting, quilting, sewing, acting, photographing. And perhaps you are doing these things, but I would love to see the results. And if you are not doing these things (as much as you'd like to), you should. Just as I should.

I recently read a book called "Nudge", which explains how small incentives can get people to act in positive ways - often in ways they wish they would act. The standard issues involve making sure you start saving for your pension plan early enough (guilty!), living a healthy lifestyle now and not "later", or finally learning that language you've dreamed of learning. Some methods to "nudge" people to act on their wishes is to provide more information / courses / a coach to help you sit down to think things through / surveys that force you to make a decision one way or another (without the option of "will do that later"). Others include making pacts with friends or colleagues, or even using online tools, whereby you commit to doing x, pay in y, and only get y back if you fulfill x. Y otherwise gets donated to charity, or your friend.

Any takers? I have a list of "to dos", but the "later" is stronger. Perhaps I should simply blog less? ;)