When I was in my early teens I read everything I could get my hands on by Ayn Rand. She was my idol. My heroine. My voice I could not find. I wanted to be Dagny Taggart, the heroine of her novel, Atlas Shrugged. I wanted to be tall, angular, blonde. I wanted Dagny’s piercing blue eyes. Her strong voice. Her passionate pursuit of her dreams and goals. Dagny was a no-nonsense, focused, driven, altruistic, independent business woman who believed the state had no business running her business. I wanted to be Dagny.
Lofty dreams for a short, dark-haired, brown-eyed and rounded girl. Challenging.
In the journey from teenhood to adulthood, I gave up trying to change my look. Wasn’t going to happen. Once I reached the limits of my 5’3″ height, I accepted my fate of being ‘vertically challenged’ and settled into letting go of trying to scale the highest peaks. I was never going to make it to the top, I told myself, and held myself back from even trying. As to being tall, blue-eyed and blonde, well, that too was relegated to childhood fiction. Wasn’t going to happen. I hadn’t much enjoyed math-induced angular explorations anyway and finding angles on my not so angular body was an even more difficult proposition.
In Richard Wagamese’s novel, “Dream Wheels“, Joe Willie Wolfchild, a rodeo cowboy, loses his dream to an encounter with a bull. He doesn’t know who he is without his dream and falls into a stormy silence back on the ranch his parents and their parents before them had settled into when their dreams had been stomped dead in the harsh reality of the rodeo ring. For his parents, their Native traditions sustained them. For Joe Willie, his anger fueled him. It corroded him from the inside out like the rust on the truck he’s restoring that his parents once used to take them from rodeo to rodeo when they too shared in the dream of being Champion Bull Riders. He doesn’t know what to do with his anger, but a bear walks into his vision and gives him permission to growl through his pain so that he can get through grieving the past into living the life of his dreams renewed.
Towards the denouement of the novel, Joe Willie tells Claire, a battered woman who has come to the ranch looking for her son, “In rodeo you always have to qualify for the big round. To prove your worth. She [the bear] meant that life isn’t rodeo. That I qualify. That I’m a part of things regardless. Guess I forgot that. Or never learned it in the first place.”
No matter our position on the rungs of success, how lost we are on the road of diminished possibilities, or where we land in the rodeo ring, we are a part of it. A part of the life around us. The life of our families, our communities, our world. Our past has brought us here. Our future lies untold. Our present is the moment in which we shine. In which we can choose to step into life, or away from living.
And it is our dreams that carry us through, the darkness and the light. It is our dreams that shine, even when our eyes are closed.
We can choose to step towards making our dreams come true or we can growl our way through each agonizing moment into the darkness of giving up on believing in ourselves, in our dreams, in our possibilities.
Sometimes, our dreams are built on fantasy, like me wanting to look like Dagny Taggart. Regardless of our height, our size, our wealth, or a thousand other equations, the thing is, we gotta have a dream to make a dream come true.
We don’t have to qualify to have a dream, we simply have to believe we do, and hold it in our hearts and paint it, live it, dream it. And should we choose to let it go, there is always space to dream again, unless we disqualify ourselves from riding bulls and following rainbows where ever they may lead… and that’s when the pain sets in.
The question is: What’s your dream? Are you treating yourself as a qualifier, claiming your rightful place at centre stage of your life unfolding around you? Or, are you letting your dreams fall by the wayside, using anger as a reason to avoid, to let go, to hang up on yourself?
Do you measure the world as unfair, unjust, so that you can walk away from your dreams? Or, do you measure yourself as a winner, the architect of your life, the person who can make it happen because you are worthy of your dreams come true?
We don’t have to qualify to live our dreams, but we do have to keep on dreaming and fearlessly taking the ride that will create reality out of our dreams.
Dare Boldly 
Thank you Louise. I like to read about dreams, because I call myself a dreamer, sometimes a hopless dreamer, sometimes a happy one.
I do dream a lot, always, but i don’t really have “a dream” one purpose. My dreams are all very realistic. None of them is “out of reach” or impossible, although they seem impossible for the moment.
So many of my dreams did come true, some of them didn’t …yet… but will maybe when the time is right.
I dreamed of being free with my children. Now I am.
I dreamed of meeting with Jodi. I did.
My dream now is to have a friend
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Hello lovely Nikki — you are a dreamer — and a builder. Look how much you have accomplished! WOW!
Your dream to have a friend makes my heart ache — I wish for you a dear dear friend to call and lean on, to laugh with, to cry with, to rejoice with.
may all your dreams come true my friend.
Hugs
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Thank you so much Louise for understanding, because I don’t mean to offend all my friends, all the people I’m in contact with via emails, FB or on the blogs, but what I need is like you said someone who would share with me the happy or sad moments, someone i can call and ask to come if I’m not well, someone who would accept to hold my hand when I’m in pain. Much love ❤
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You don’t offend Nikky — your heart is very beautiful. Part of our human condition is to want closeness with one another — and this space of cyberland is important, it gives us so much, but, having someone in real 3D makes an enormous difference. Hugs my dear friend.
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LG,
I believe .. when you say rounded, you’ve just left out the G …. should be, ‘grounded’, which you are!
Well done. Nice piece.
Cheers,
Mark
p.s. I’m reminded .. in both the opening and closing scenes of that movie Pretty Woman .. “welcome to Hollywood, what’s your dream?’ …. and you made me smile this morning. Keep on being ’rounded … we all like that very much.
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haha — good catch Mark — though I think I probably should have written both! I have never been angular! 🙂
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My drew is to be Dagny Taggert, no matter what you tell me!
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Tee hee — it seems Ronnie that you and I are not alone! 🙂
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I found this post fascinating Louise. We are often taught to meditate (or yoga or go for a walk in nature etc) in order to ‘ground’ us and bring us back to the present moment of the present day. Yet despite all that advice, I have always truly believed that the thing that keeps one person going over the next is having a dream and holding onto that dream – no matter what happens.
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Such a good point Elizabeth — that having a dream and holding onto it is what keeps us going. When I have been unhappiest in my life is when I let go of dreaming and fell into believing my dreams were not important.
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A timely post for me Louise! Although I waver, sometimes give in to defeat and anger, I always pull my boots up by the straps and ride that bull again – eventually.
I do feel lost without a dream. ❤
Diana xo
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Ah yes Diana — gotta ride that bull again! Like you, I feel lost without a dream. We still have to work on making that one we talked about together come true! 🙂 Hugs my friend.
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Yes. I haven’t forgotten. 🙂 I did mention it to the group and am somewhat practicing ‘letting go of the outcomes’ – waiting, waiting, waiting.
Hugs back to you,
Diana xo
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Love this post Louise. Dreams give us hope, meaning and nourish our soul.
We do have to let go of some and find other dreams for ourselves that are aligned with our inner nature and wisdom.
I dream with my eyes open.
Val x
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Thanks for that Val — I dream with my eyes open — learning to dream with my eyes open has been a life long journey for me. One that keeps enriching my world and nourishing my soul.
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Thank you this was another marvellous post our dreams are such a big part of us
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They are a big part of us aren’t they Joanne. From your side of the world to mine, our dreams can connect us!
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LOL Louise – I wanted to be Dagny Taggart too – my brother and I still refer to corporate missteps as ‘Wesley Mouches’. Thanks be for reading!
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I am not sure if to have a dream is such an important thing in our life (may not be so for others and for the Earth), but to have love/forgiveness I have no doubt. I hope to write a short message about dream soon, thanks for the thought provoking writing.
kc
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And thank you for your comment KC. I too agree that love/forgiveness is vital. I look forward to your message!
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