Dreaming to Fly, Afraid to Swim

Greg Richter
Nov 4 · 3 min read
Photo © 2017 Greg Richter

I’ve dreamed thousands of times that I could fly. I don’t know why — I’m just able to do it. Usually, I pull my legs up under my chest and am amazed that I hadn’t figured out I could do it all along.

But that’s all in dreams.

One thing I’ve never dreamed — or at least I have no memory of it if I have — is being able to swim. If I do dream about being in or near the water it’s usually about a fear of drowning.

I assume this is because I never learned to swim in real life.

It hit me out of the blue the other day the I’ve dreamed thousands of times that I can fly even though in real life I could never really fly. Yes, we can learn to fly an airplane or helicopter or jet pack, but that’s not really the actual human being taking to flight. Or we can pretend to fly by skydiving or hang gliding or wingsuit jumping, but that’s just controlled falling.

But real actual human beings truly do learn to jump right in the water and swim around. I just can’t do it because I have a fear of putting my head underwater.

So why wouldn’t I have a dream — at least one measly dream — that I could swim?

Don’t we do that all the time in our everyday lives? We dream big impossible dreams that often waste perfectly good time on when we could be dreaming about doing something that’s actually within our grasp.

We dream we’re going to win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and retire for life. Nothing wrong with that, but your odds are very, very low. You can enter, and that’s the extent of your control. Better to spend more time dreaming about things where we are active participants in the outcome.

Years ago when Johnny Paycheck, singer of “Take This Job and Shove It,” got out of prison for shooting at a man and was slowly making his comeback, he played a small bar in my town I fantasized about hiring him for 500 bucks to sing his famous song to my boss and I’d quit.

I guess I was technically an active participant in that scenario, and I also reasoned that Paycheck might actually be willing participate in such a stunt for $500 at that point in his career. But I was never really going to go through with it. And even if I had pulled it off, who would have wanted to hire me after that?

Instead, I could have used that misspent time trying to get my resume up to date and searching for job leads.

My point is, if you’re like most people you’re probably feeling stuck in a rut in some area of your life right now and you keep dreaming about how this or that is going to magically solve it. It’s not. There’s something else perfectly reasonable right there in front of you — and you already know what it is — and you need to start paying attention to that thing, or that person, right now.

It might be professional, personal, or spiritual, but whatever it is, it’s been nagging at you. So take care of it.

It’s OK to dream the impossible, but don’t fear the possible.

Greg Richter is a journalist, author and faith-based podcaster. His latest ebook, The Bee Attitudes: And Other Spiritual Lessons From Everyday Life, is available for free at Smashwords or for 99 cents at Amazon.

Greg Richter

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Journalist, author, faith-based essayist, podcaster. Author of “The Bee Attitudes: And Other Spiritual Lessons From Everyday Life”

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