Build Your Vision
“There are dreamers and there are realists in this world.
“You’d think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not, the opposite is true.
“You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring too close to the sun.
“And the realists? Well, without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground.”
This bit of wisdom from the popular television comedy Modern Family set me thinking. I got the drift, and agree completely, but the language seemed a bit polarizing.
In that scenario, the realists are the debunkers, the naysayers. But what makes their rebuttal more real than what the dreamers see? It didn’t seem fair, or accurate, to put reality solely in their domain.
Visionaries and Builders
What if the dreamers were “visionaries,” and the realists were “builders?” While we each have some of both (switching sides as we please), these two functional categories of people truly need one another. Reality — making the dream happen — requires input from both sides. The vision needs a form where the world can participate.
Visionaries see the long term while builders focus on a more immediate future. Builders gather the temporal power needed to make something happen; visionaries see a subtle, transcendent power at play.
Visionaries warn builders of the unwanted side effects of what they are building; builders fashion visionaries’ dreams into a shared reality.
What ultimately comes into form is a co-creation of visionaries and builders, and it needs constant tweaking.
What’s Your Vision?
As more people hold a vision, the likelihood of the vision being built increases.
Spiritual practice of any form – meditation, Reiki, yoga, etc. — makes us both visionary and builder. As we practice, we give form to our vision in the world, as ourselves.
Actually being our vision (with thankfulness, work diligently) makes it more likely that our vision will show up in the world around us.
What’s your vision, for yourself and for the world? Please click here to share it as a comment.
The illustration is William Blake’s Jacob’s Ladder.
If you liked this, you might also like:
Are You Crazy Enough to Change the World?
What a beautiful and inspiring post. It reminded me of John Lennon’s song Imagine.. My vision for is to live each day with gratitude and compassion. To ultimately create space within my self, and the world around me to meet the challenges of daily life. The Reiki Precepts and a daily self-treatment practice have helped me hold this vision close to my heart,and more often than not I see it in the world around me..