I loathe the question "What are your hopes and dreams?" When I hear it -- whether it's a casual conversation, a deep heart-to-heart, or in a joking manner -- I have a visceral reaction and have to fight the impulse to physically extract myself from the conversation. Even if it's an extraction that looks like something out of a Die Hard movie.
It's not that I'm goalless or have no hopes or dreams, it's just such a personal topic that always makes me freeze. What are my hopes and dreams? I'm not a 12-year-old girl anymore; I don't have a dream journal that I'm frantically scribbling life plans into or a hope chest that I'm delicately placing all my trinkets into. I'm a grown woman who has suffered loss and had to reboot my life in a very surreal manner. Some of my hopes and dreams that I had defined earlier in my life are no longer possibilities, and I am good with that. Hopes and dreams are often a luxury when faced with just trying to get through the day-to-day struggles of being, well, a human being.
But I've come to realize that my main goal above all else is to be happy. It's simple and sounds like an inadequate answer to some, like maybe I'm holding back. Someone told me recently that that wasn't a real goal because, well, isn't that what everyone wants? However, for me, "to be happy" is all-encompassing and includes more than just the general definition of being happy. "To be happy" means waking up each day, looking forward to what the day might bring. To enjoy going to work because it means I have a job (and a career) that I am truly invested in with co-workers who are good, fun, hard working people. To love the friends and family that I choose to spend my time with because it means that they are kind, intelligent, witty, thoughtful individuals. To like and be proud of who I am as an individual. To not regret any words I might have spoken that day or any missed opportunities or adventures that I did not take because I was too afraid or, honestly, lazy. To experience joy in the little, mundane moments of life because it means that I'm still here, still existing.
From my perspective, to be happy is one of the hardest goals to achieve. I look back on my late 20s and early 30s -- the time in my life where I was married to someone I never should have been with, working a job that caused me anxiety and that I thoroughly disliked, and watching my stepfather slowly decline in health and then pass away -- I wasn't happy. I had fleeting moments of happiness, but nothing like how I feel today. Today I am happy. Each day I wake up, I am excited for the possibilities of what might occur, who I am going to spend my time with. This is the ultimate hope and dream achieved for me. The rest of those hopes and dreams seem minimal to that, just like tiny details that help me achieve the big goal. I have my bucket list but, if I don't make it to Norway before I die, I'm okay with that because it means that I will have chosen another way to spend my time to enjoy my life. To achieve happiness and feel joy even in the dark moments of life is the ultimate hope and dream for myself. Ultimately, it's me defining my own hopes and dreams, so it doesn't matter how simple it might sound to someone else.
