Dream BIG

Things are changing very rapidly. Splendid is finally getting ready. A new website with a new concept is about to be launched. Alex and I are married for the first time. Life seems to have suddenly taken some cool speed; it’s as if an amazing gust of wind had lifted us and is pushing us to make our dreams come true, all those dreams that are still pending because for both of us so many have already realized. It’s really an amazing thing. I know things have been slow here on Project Bluesphere but just hang on a little bit longer. There’s a lot that’s taking shape and coming to life.

The most amazing thing to me is that we feel so fulfilled and fortunate and neither of us was blessed with a happy or a wealthy home when we were kids. We were not particularly fortunate if you know what I mean. Life was freaking hard. We struggled for a long time. Then we touched bottom, and a striking idea came to mind: why not? Why not? I was just thinking while I was making dessert (curuious? I sliced some bananas in a little bowl with cane sugar, chopped walnuts and almonds and then I put 100% cacao in coconut milk and poured it on top mmmmm).

Anyway I was thinking about our lives and about dreams people have and I came to a realization: You know why dreams do not come true sometimes? Because people don’t dream big enough.

Say you want to be the CEO of a huge corporation or you wanna have stacks of money, be beautiful or young forever. Well, it’s not gonna happen because those dreams are so shortsighted, they suck. The universe is not gonna make two million Paris Hiltons. One is more than enough. Now seriously though, see how many rock stars kill themselves? How many CEOs live on cocaine during the day and painkillers or sleeping pills at night? See how difficult it really is to be young, attend school, put up with your peers’ BS and your own insecurities? Why do people want to LOOK younger? Being young is so hard why would you wanna look like them poor things? Why not look your own age with all that life has taught you to make you cooler and wiser?

Now if you dream big, say, you want to help make this a better world, well you totally can. And it takes a week, maybe two, to find a really cool NGO you can work with for example. Or people in your area that are getting together to do something important, fun and creative.

Another big one, say you want to fall in love with a wonderful person. All you gotta do is start being wonderful yourself: smile, do things for others, love the planet you live on, dance, lie on the grass, you will soon meet someone who likes to do these things too. Someone wonderful.

You want to write a book? Start writing. You probably won’t be very good at first but you can learn. You want to record an album? It’s never been this easy, recording with the computer is great. Start playing an instrument or learn how to use the software. Practice, practice, take lessons, play with other people, learn from them too. You can be a musician. You can be anything you really really want. It takes commitment, practice, patience, but it’s possible. You wanna travel the world? Do I really have to comment on that? It’s so cheap now, there are so many options: not only sailing, there’s Couchsurfing, Wwoof, NGOs with international aid programs, or just youth hostels, there are people cycling around the world, rowing around the world, you can get sponsored, etc etc etc

I don’t know what your dreams were when you were younger or what you dream of now but in my experience it’s that easy you know. You want to watch TV, have a job, drink beer on your couch, there’s nothing wrong with that! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise if that’s what you like. If you have good friends and you go to bed and smile thinking lovely things before you fall asleep, who cares if you don’t do something extraordinary. Screw that. Life is good. Simple is good if it makes you happy. If you don’t forget to tell your family that you love them or write a note if you can’t say the words, just make sure they know. If you love animals and flowers and rainy afternoons drinking tea, then your life is wonderful.

Dream big means dream you deserve to be happy, to go to bed and not worry or be afraid, to wake up full of energy and anticipation for the next project you are going to tackle. You should know that you deserve to live the life YOU want. The life of an athlete running local marathons or the life of a potato-chip-eating football fan. It’s YOUR life. And as long as you smile, yield, care for others, help those who need you, then you are what the universe needs.

I sometimes write here on Alex’s page because I remember a few years ago when I was really unhappy. And I did not have real problems, I liked my job, my family, my friends, going to the cinema, reading books, playing music. Life seemed OK. But there was something missing. I went to bed at night and something was wrong. I kept feeling that life was hard. That I felt trapped. I felt stressed sometimes. Lost. It was similar to what happened to Alex a few years back. I felt I was in a hamster wheel. Work-bills-holidays-work-bills. It just seemed like a never-ending thing that was going to collapse on top of my head, I rarely had time to lie in the sun for more than half an hour doing nothing on weekdays. I had to save every month in order to be able to go somewhere at the end of the year for a couple of weeks. I had to spend money on things I did not care for but that everyone seemed to be spending on or I would be a total outsider. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I felt trapped. I felt sad.

Now I keep thinking there might be someone out there going through something similar. And Alex has this space on the internet and man do I feel like a broken record but I have to keep preaching freedom. It’s possible. Anyone can do it. You can wake up and instead of doing traffic jam-Starbucks-office-home knackered you can do sunrise, fresh fruit, dive into the ocean and later do some sanding and painting in Bali, Costa Rica or Alaska. It is really really possible and it’s really really this simple. Neither Alex nor I had two pennies to rub together when we met, or when we started looking for something different. It does not take money. It takes courage to go for it. Whatever your dream is, as long as it’s a big one!

My dream when I was at work was to be at the beach drinking pineapple smoothies, reading a book, playing guitar or making arts and crafts. I did not want to work everyday for someone else. I did not want to have money or money problems. I wanted to have time. And sea water. And a fun handsome loving boyfriend. And make music.

You probably won’t believe me but I had traveled for years and all, working on and off thinking about this but I was thinking about it, I hadn’t really been fed up yet. Then it was November 2011 and I was working at this institute back home for the second year and I had a fight with my boss because she kept saying she could not afford paying us teachers for the summer holidays like a regular school, even though some of us worked full time for her (while she told us about her trips to Europe staying at five-star hotels for example). I got furious and it was not pretty. I got fed up with the whole thing. And I told her. I felt bad that it came out that way, I was a little out of it. I blamed her for the whole system, she probably did not deserve it. I went home broken-hearted and I talked to my mum about it, I felt the world had collapsed on my head and that it was always going to be the same. Work-bills-buying stuff I did not need-holidays-work-bills. Not for me.

Now hear me out, true story, I swear. Classes ended on December 16. I traveled to Miami the following week to spend Christmas and New Year with my brother and my dad and on the way back I stopped in Panama. I arrived in Panama City on January 10 (less than a month after the end of the school year) and I met Alex/moved to Splendid on January 12.

Is that freaking weird or what? Talk about you want it, you got it. My biggest dream materialized in LESS THAN FOUR WEEKS. I do not need to have a job anymore, or buy anything other than food and $2 bikinis when they disintegrate, I am happily married and live on a yacht in the Caribbean for goodness’ sake! I make music and subtitles for my husband’s upcoming movies. I paint, design, draw, do upholstery, swim everyday, spot stingrays and dolphins at night when they swim next to the boat or follow them with my camera when Alex goes fishing.

Dream big! Dream about freedom. About helping others. About being yourself and having your own life and it comes true, I tell you it comes true. It’s not just us, I see people like us EVERY DAY. Boats come and go with very similar stories. People who got fed up, just took off and now live offshore and go home to visit for a month or two every year. And things work out. We are closer to our families than ever before, we visit, they visit, they see us free and happy and it makes them happy even though we are far. Dream big and it’ll come true.

Now dream small -I want a mega yacht with a helicopter on top, people serving me, to shop at Prada, look like million bucks- yeah, good luck with that.

Published in Carla Dorsey