Looking Through a Window

We see what we wish to see. Eyes are funny that way. That’s why you can look at a window covered with smears and stains, and still be able to look at the outdoors. Our eyes can focus on what is right in front of us, or look right through that into the great beyond.

It’s quite a gift, to be able to look past the ugly into the beautiful. However, that gift becomes a curse when we perpetually ignore the bad and focus on the good. Conversely, it is unhealthy to focus on the dirt and grit alone and fail to look past that to see the beauty of it all.

With this realization brings forth quite the predicament: our eyes cannot look simultaneously at what is beyond and what is present, neither of which gives the whole picture. Which then, should we focus on? Focus on the bad in the present and fail to see the light at the end, or become so consumed in looking towards the future that we fail to deal with current problems? This is the predicament all of humanity must face.

The Dreamers

I’ve always been a dreamer. I stare wistfully out the window, hoping and praying for better things to come. I spent the entirety of my senior year ready to break out of my small town into bigger and better things. I would write college names with little hearts around them in my agenda (the definitive proof that you are the biggest nerd in the world).

However, when better things do come, I’m still restless and waiting for the next step. Never truly content, a piece of me constantly wants the moment I’m in to be over so I can get to my next step in life. In thinking always about the future, I sometimes fail to enjoy what I have in the here and now.

Successful people are often dreamers. Famous inventors, philosophers and writers all took their dreams and translated it into real life. However, if you look at the most successful people, many are unhappy. The problem is dreamers never have enough. There is always more to do, more to have, and more to see. Dreamers live in their heads, and see an endless amount of possibilities that they need to achieve. This need to achieve, though, can be detrimental to their health.

The Realists

Then there are those who live in the moment. Happy to be where they are, they do not feel this restlessness within their soul like dreamers do. They live a life of simplicity and bliss. These are the people with average lives: a family to support, a nine to five job, and a simple world. One must note, too, that the older people get, the more grounded they become in reality. They become content in their current position and fail to think that there could possibly be more to come.

The problem with realists is that, in being so content in their current position, they fail to plan ahead and think big. In being at peace with their current state, they lack the drive to push forth to their next step in life. They fail to accomplish things because they feel they cannot.

The Problem

This leads us to ask, what is better? To be happy in the moment or to be motivated to move to the next step? I would argue that a healthy balance of both is needed to live with the most success possible. We need to do the impossible: focus on both the window smudges and the outdoors simultaneously.

As children, the world is our oyster. We dream big and nothing is impossible. Then slowly, we realize that there are limitations. It is natural and healthy that we recognize this. However, it is not healthy to think that we are destined for mundane mediocrity simply because we have not discovered the cure for cancer by the age of 18. Life is full of success in all different modes and quantities. What is success for one person may be mundane to the next.

The Solution

The solution is simple yet tricky: to be a dreamer, but a grounded one. We must try things we never thought we could do and not get discouraged by what we cannot achieve. Success is not limited to fame, nor does fame equate success. We must find our happiness, and in doing that, we will find our success. We need to look to the future but enjoy the present. We must look out the window while keeping one eye on the smudges.