“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream”
Vincent Van Gogh
I remember my first dream, not the kind you get when you sleep, the kind you make in your thoughts. I was a kid watching Indiana Jones: Raiders of the lost ark, it was the eighties and our TV wasn’t large nor the picture very clear. What was clear to me after seeing that movie was a future involving seeing the world and going on adventure.
I’ve recently felt bad about not having specific goals in life. I’ve tried, some of the books I read and conversations I listen too encourage them, but they just don’t float my boat. What does float my boat is dreams and I’ve actually had success with dreaming.
At age 11 my dream of exploring the world was cemented in my mind. By my early twenties I was travelling the USA, Africa and the pacific. I wasn’t an archaeologist fighting Nazis though I did experience some interesting situations. My dream of seeing the world on my terms (not a vacation) lasted 3 years and I still cherish all the ups and downs it gave me. That time essentially recreated who I am today.
Somewhere during that period I read Microserfs by Douglas Coupland and Bill Gates’ The road ahead. I then had a new dream and that dream was to join the biggest software company in the world, Microsoft. I didn’t have a computer science degree nor professional software engineering experience, what I did have was a dream.
10 years later I was working at Microsoft, helping grow a new organisation within Xbox based in the UK. I never did make a plan on how to get there, and the only conscious decision I made to work at Microsoft was saying YES when they called. What I had was that dream, and that dream led me there.
When you have a dream, the decisions you make and the crossroads you encounter will take you closer to it, both consciously and unconsciously.
While at Microsoft I eventually had a new dream about the work I do. One where I didn’t work in games, yet felt like I was working in games. I made no plans, I just dreamed of working with people on something big, something different and something meaningful. That dream led me to Unity. I wasn’t consciously looking and the only conscious decision I made to join them was saying YES when they called.
If there’s something or someone in your life you’re dreaming about, keep dreaming. Life has a way of making it happen.
“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country”
Anais Nin
Be a dreamer.