Someday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops, that’s where you’ll find me
- Judy Garland, excerpt from Over the Rainbow
If we stay too long in our dreams of the future, we can get lost longing for what we don’t have or what we’re still missing. This quickly triggers our negative reel, which convinces us that we are not good enough and that we should be here and not there. “Someday” can’t seem to come soon enough because it’s not until then that things will have finally changed.
This mindset can create a space where we are stuck waiting for someday to come. We plan for a time where everything will be different. But until then we will have to find ways to cope, manage the discomfort, strategize to distract and numb the present moment, until that someday finally gets here.
We may not recognize that these coping strategies created to get us through our chaotic days is also what's keeping us from creating the change we’ve been waiting for. For most of us, it’s easier to wait for external circumstances to change instead of actively creating the change we want for our future.
But if we shift from wishing for a better future to focusing on making small changes in the present, then we will someday recognize that it’s a process to get to our dreams. It’s the gradual layering of skills developed over time and discovering resilience that builds the bridge to take us over the rainbow.
The decisions we make in the present moment allows us to gradually grow in the direction we’ve been gazing. And it’s only after taking one small step after another that we can reflect on the path that we’ve created. It’s a process and it takes time.
So we must not get stuck wishing upon a star so we can someday wake up where the clouds are far behind us. Instead, we must focus on what we want to build for ourselves and how we are going to build it. Because if we focus on the process to reach our goals, it will allow us to discover our true value, our self worth, and the vastness of our capabilities along the way.
The value of taking the time to reflect on where we’ve been is that it reminds us that we were once stuck wishing for a better future instead of taking the steps to create one. And though the progression of our personal growth journeys continues to be slow, full of hard work and challenges, we are no longer waiting for “someday” because we can now see that we are already on the path heading over the rainbow.
With love,
Ming-Wai + Ming-Cee