A Short Story

Dave Gofman
2 min readOct 20, 2017

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There once lived a man who dreamed of doing many things. He had an interest in writing, reading great literature, becoming a monk, a college professor, an ultra-marathoner. He recently thought about running for public office, about opening a restaurant, or a small coffee shop, about being a musician. He wanted so badly to experience these things, but each time he set out he was overwhelmed by his sense of inadequacy.

“My writing sucks,” he would think. And he stopped writing. He picked up a book that he struggled to understand and so turned to easily digestible fiction. “I don’t have time to meditate,” he decided, and so he stopped meditating. He found out that a professorship frequently required a Ph.D., and so that dream died as well. He went through each of his dreams in this way before resigning himself to what by many standards amounted to a good life. He had a practical job with good benefits, married early, and he spent much of his free time playing video games and watching sports with friends. And while he told himself that he was happy carrying on in this way, he never was. And deep down he knew it. Because he also knew that he could have done all of those things he dreamed of; he knew that he had them inside himself all along.

In the end, he lived a long life. His dreams remained inside him until the day he died, and they remain inside him to this day.

So the next time you pass the cemetery and you see the rows of tombstones, ask yourself what all of those people left inside of themselves. And ask yourself, what are you willing to leave inside of you?

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Dave Gofman

Psychotherapist, Meditation Teacher, Nonprofit Healthcare Administrator. Write about mindfulness, psychology, and share what I’m reading and pondering.