Reach For the Stars With the Intent to Touch Them

(Written November 24, 2008)

There are very few things in this life more heartbreaking than broken dreams and shattered ambition. It happens to pretty much all of us. We try so hard, and give so much of ourselves to achieve some high, righteous, often selfless ambition, only to be crushed in the end by the very thing we're reaching for. Almost invariably, this will encourage some rather dark feelings buried deep within ourselves to surface in a very ugly and visceral way. How easy is it then, to convince ourselves that this life is designed to torment us with dreams that are simply unreachable? In our severely wounded and vulnerable minds, this becomes true, in the same way as the literal implausibility of being able to touch the stars we see in the sky.

But as our minds begin to heal, we may come to see that this is nothing but a malicious lie. We may realize that there truly is no dream that is unreachable, and that the only obstacle that can possibly impede us on the journey is our own unwillingness to believe. We disable ourselves with our own false, often society-imposed self-doubt, and it needs to stop.

Perhaps our biggest problem is the way in which we view the idea of reaching for the stars. Too often, I think that we go forward with trying to reach for the stars by only reaching and nothing else. We go through the motions for a little while, but we never expect that we will actually be able to touch the stars. Isn't that awfully limiting? Really, what is the point of reaching for our ambitions if we don't expect that we'll ever be able to embrace them?

Is using stars as metaphorical representations of our dreams and ambitions too much? Is it just too high? I don't think so! In fact, I think it's a perfect metaphor. Whenever I think of what it takes to appreciate the beauty of the actual stars in the sky, I always think of it as comparable to looking in the eyes of a child, or someone you love. You can just see the immense potential in their eyes. And to even consider for a second, that their potential can somehow never be fully tapped into, or that their dreams can never be realized--it's just unthinkable. Try it next time you interact with someone like that, and you'll see what I mean. Besides, I'm not sure that we could ever dream too big, and I am thoroughly convinced that our dreams are given to us by a Higher Hand. And perhaps after all that we can do, that same Higher Hand will bring the stars down to us!

But one may ask, "What happens if I enter the path, and try to reach for these stars, and am never given the opportunity to touch them? What if something happens on the way?" Well, it's a long ways to get to the stars from the ground. Let us never forget that there are innumerable beautiful things in between...