They told me it was
alright to dream. That dreaming was all a part of the human experience. They
said that dreaming kept us alive, it kept us hoping for a brighter future. They
told me that many people had dreams and they didn't necessarily have to have a
tangible meaning. That I should accept dreaming like each breath I took, a
subconscious action I could not do without and one that I could go on doing without
putting much thought into it.
So I began to dream. I dreamt just of the sun rise and its setting, its resplendent light giving joy to many. I dreamt of the moon and the stars ever shining in the dark night. Soon my dreams were no longer about the mundane but began to feature me as the main character. A character ever evolving and changing with every dream, a character who knew all the best lines, the best way forward, the greatest strategies, the fixer, the action hero.
I waited every morning for
night, the night time that came with dreams, fantasies and wonders of me being
prince, king and president. I chose never to miss it. I watched movies and read
novels so that I could re-enact my own versions, where I was the good guy, the
super hero, the star of attention.
When people spoke of
vices, I could speak of none. When they shared experiences of drinking,
womanizing, or getting high, I couldn't trade my own tales of who I fought last
night, or the look alike of that popular female actress whom I had rescued the
night before.I couldn't connect with their vices and didn't seem to understand why they chose things so destructive. Before long I found out that I too could get wrecked by my dreams, my weakness that I refused to acknowledge.
So I lied to myself to
keep up the habit. I began to research not how to break the love for the dream, but how to separate sleep from
dreaming. After all. I told myself, my vice wasn't in the dream but in the sleeping. The dream was the end result I
craved and the sleep was the unnecessary process that could get me there, it
was also the true vice that could lead to my end. So why not separate the
process from the end result? It was like trying to separate drugs
from the feeling of being on top of the world that it brings with it, a fool's
errand I knew it was, even before I began, but I refused to acknowledge it for what it was, a Vice.
We refuse to acknowledge
them for what they are: bad habits, trivial defects,
shortcomings that could lead to our downfall even when we know what they are we
ignore them, lying to ourselves and putting a
positive spin on them. Vices spread beyond the obvious
three (smoking, drinking, drugs) they are things we indulge
in and spend far too much time doing rather than concentrating on goal
achieving actions: gossiping like the world is coming to end, shopping till you go broke, borrowing like your life depends on it, and
sleeping like a bear in winter. Acknowledge your bad habits for what they are, vices, that need to be broken, or choose to live life in the shadow of your true potential.
