I Thought Dreams Died After You Had Children

I have realized that is just plain false.  A quote by Derek Sivers is quite relevant here, I think.  In an interview they asked him what advice he would give his 30 year old self. I listened intently as, well, I would be the target audience. He said, don’t be a donkey. Let me explain.  The story goes that a donkey was stuck between eating hay and drinking water.  He was hungry and thirsty and wanted to eat and drink at the same time but couldn’t do both so he was paralyzed into doing nothing.  So he died. Of hunger AND thirst.  So here’s the thing.  We can do everything we want to, it just doesn’t have to be RIGHT NOW.  That hit home for me.  I don’t have to do everything right now.  Or today. Or even tomorrow.  Sometimes it’s ok to put things off for later.  But I can start working on little bits of it now.

I think the moms I know do it best.  My cousins wife, mother of twins, does an amazing job of that.  She has dreams and she has a life but that doesn’t take anything away from being an amazing mom.  Same with my godchild’s mother, my friend Prajakta.  She still travels and thinks about her career and such, but again, is still an amazing mom.  Are their dreams the same as when they didn’t have kids? Probably not.  But why is that any better or worse?  They’re still dreams, they still excite you and you can still pursue them. Just..in a different way than before.

I guess maybe I’m stating the obvious, but I suppose I have this really warped view of the world and I’m only starting to realize that.  The world isn’t as terrible as the news makes it out to be.  It’s actually quite decent, turns out.