...for the Wishful Thinker

My wishes don't consist

of being a little bit taller

of being a baller

of having a girl who looked good (i would call her)

nor do they consist of having

a rabbit in a hat with a bat and a '64 Impala.

Unfortunately, they consist of things that are a little more complex than that.

My wishes consist

of applying out of state to colleges

of living debt free

of moving to a boat town off of the east coast and owning a small book store

but ultimately of being able to go through my day without writing down a single reminder to myself. without using 16 post-it notes to remind me of what i have to do that day or without writing something down in one of my two daily planners.

I wish I could live my life with the sole intention of Wishing, not Accomplishing.

I don't think I could recall when my wishes turned into to-dos. Most likely when I decided that letting myself lose those wishes was okay. I find it sad that in today's society, we have come to the social norm of accomplishments and aspirations rather than dreams and wishes. To me, those are two very different categories.

Accomplishments and Aspirations are what school and family has told you are "smart moves" on your part. That through those, you will be who you want to be. I'm sorry, but the only person you will become through those are who they want you to be. We have become so used to success and the next step rather than living in the now and reminiscing on the past that we find this acceptable. We find the make-believe desires of our outer-being are replacing the inner thoughts that we refuse to let go of.

Dreams and Wishes are your uttermost wants and desires. What you daydream about in your tree house when it is pouring outside or what you imagine when you walk down by the stream making crowns out of daisies with your fairy court behind you. Without these dreams and wishes, you lose yourself entirely in the hustle and bustle of tomorrow. We so easily forget that these are what make us who we are. Despite the efforts of society to conform us into law-abiding citizens who become lawyers and 9-5'ers, we cling onto these hopes when we have nothing else to turn to.

I don't want our dreams and wishes to be "the back-up plan". I don't want us to have to fall back on these when we have nothing else.

It saddens me that I have let myself do that. I have let myself fall back on my passion in life and have relied on my goal to get me through these last months of high school.

So where will you be in 20 years? I know where I want to be.

Will you join me in the pursuit of Wishing and the deterioration of To-Do lists and Accomplishments? I want to be able to look back on life and see that I lived my life doing what made me happy, not doing what I thought I was good at or what I thought was going to get me far in life.

What will you do? Skip along the stream in your daisy crown, or continue sticking post-it notes along the blank pages of your planner?