Storms; Freedom

I just slept for 14 hours, from 7pm to 7am. I remember having had at least two dreams, one involving some kind of secret operation and the other involving my uni friends. I may have had more, but I'm not sure now. 14 hours of real-time is a lot of time in dreamland, according to Inception.

“And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. when you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ~ Haruki Murakami

I've been dreaming a lot lately, and it feels like my anxieties have been trickling out a little through those dreams. The past few months have been filled with uneasy sleep, guilt, and constant worry and self-doubt, all because I tried to accomplish more than I knew how (or was able).

I had tried to deal with a false dichotomy; I had believed that you have to choose between pleasing people and achieving bigger goals some times, so I did what was not natural to me, and it made me feel lost and directionless inside. But in reality, such a division does not exist. You can still respect people while trying to achieve goals that may not please everyone at first. You can still wait and listen to people (including your self) while you figure out the best way to accomplish something that's best for everyone involved.

Ultimately, goals are about people. They are about the people who benefit from their accomplishment. They are about the team that executes them, the spirit and the motivation that the people inside it have. They are not abstractions that you should make blind sacrifices for.