Keep Your Eyes Open When You Dream

​"Nothing haunts us more than the dreams we didn't act upon!"
Ed Sykes

by Skip Cohen

​It's my favorite day of the week, Throwback Thursday, but I wanted to look back at more than just a few old photographs.

When we were kids, nothing could surpass our imaginations. A new refrigerator meant the box it came in was the perfect fort. Blankets over a table became a castle. We improvised with whatever was available and simply created one Hollywood set after another. There was no limit to how far we could travel on our magic carpet.

As we got older, we learned to color inside the lines, and Peter Pan had to grow up sooner or later. We learned to keep things "real" and dreaming of becoming whoever and whatever we aspired to needed to be within reason. Dreams became "visions" - a vision being on the practical side of accomplishments. And when asked what you want to be when you grow up, responses like "a cowboy" or "run away and join the circus" morphed into more practical vocations.

Note: That's me at four years old. I never got to join the circus, but managing a rodeo team for Polaroid in the 80s was pretty damn close to becoming a cowboy. And for you older rodeo fans, that's world champion bull-rider, the legendaryTuff Hedeman next to me, and the big guy in the middle of the back row is Rod Lyman, who years later became president of the PRCA.

Somewhere in the aging process, creativity returned. Driven by time, we realized that being practical and following the rules was hampering our creative juices. In the world of imaging, technology seems to have heard our cry for help. Sitting down at a computer with an image, we could tweak it and break all the rules of lighting, composition, and exposure. 

Social media gave us the ability to expand our reach with new friends and concepts and literally go to the ends of the earth whenever we wanted. Dreams of what our life could be like came back into focus as we became increasingly aware that life was whatever we made of it.

"You have to color outside the lines once in awhile, if you want to make your life a masterpiece."
Albert Einstein

Many of you were focused early on in life and have known all along what you wanted to be when you were older. Well, I'm one of those still struggling, but it's also what keeps me smiling. I wake up daily knowing what I want to do, including finding time to dream a little. I look at my dreams and goals like one big file drawer loaded with ideas. And, ​I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

This is where aging becomes an asset. You realize you don't have the luxury of endless time to procrastinate - something you never really had in the first place. Some ideas you jump to quicker than others. Then there are those dreams that are very personal versus simple projects. 

Whether you call them dreams, visions, goals, or aspirations, they all represent things you hope to do, and here are six suggestions to help you keep them all alive:

• Take a few minutes and write down your top dreams/aspirations. Do it like a bucket list in no particular order.
• Identify those that are "low-hanging fruit," ones that are easier realized than others. 
• Balance things out so you're not always chasing the hardest fruit. Take a small aspiration and tackle it at the same time you're working on a longer-range one.
• Share your dreams only with those you trust most, but it's important to do so. Without letting your aspirations out, they'll suffocate and die.
• The hardest of all - surround yourself with positive people and cut the "Negators" in your life out of the picture. Nobody belongs in your life if they spend time crushing your dreams.
• Last on the list - when you're chasing a dream, and it's not working out, just change course. You don't have to let go of the dream, only the path you've chosen to get there. Remember, most dreams don't have expiration dates!

​Most important of all, DON'T SHOULD ON YOURSELF. I learned this lesson from my wife Sheila. At the beginning of our relationship, I was "should-ing" all over the place. You know the drill—you do something, it doesn't work out, and instead of putting energy into a new direction, you whine, shrug your shoulders, and say, "You know what I should have done?"

"I'll do my dreaming with my eyes wide open, and I'll do my looking back with my eyes closed."
Tony Arata

Happy Throwback Thursday!