The Leap

Due to its impossible weight, it lived bolted to a desk, surrounded by dusty books and all sorts of pencils. My uncle's typewriter.

I do not remember how I found it, but I remember everything about it. The carbon on the ribbon. The peculiar oil smell. The brass border pressed around each golden key. The worn R. The slightly crooked E.

I was too little to reach the keys without standing on a chair. So I stood. A satisfying resistance preceded every stroke. A ding at the end of each line made it worth the effort. My random presses filled multiple pages, then a story would be "read" from memory to anyone willing to hear it. I dreamt of becoming a writer. Even before I knew how words come to be.

Then somewhere in high school, I misplaced the dream.

Life followed logic and detours accumulated. The older I got, the sillier it seemed. More at stake. More to prove. More to lose. But the urge returned with every birthday, every New Year's resolution, every thought too alive to stay unwritten.

Last year I took a tiny step toward it. One newsletter, three subscribers, and the full weight of the doubt. This edition is vastly different from the first, because I am. But the question remains the same: what does it take to pursue a dream?

I have found better words to answer.

Today is the one year anniversary of The Thought.

Somewhere near you there is a restaurant never opened. A relationship never pursued. A book never written. Possibilities sitting beside the life that actually happened, unlived.

In 1986, psychologist Hazel Markus described these unrealised futures as possible selves: the people we might become, hope to become, or fear becoming. They live alongside the person we currently are. The distance between the possible and the actual can be enormous.

She found that people can easily name the versions they hope for. The writer. The entrepreneur. What proves harder is naming the versions they fear becoming. Yet it is those unnamed fears that stabilise our lives. We are afraid to fail, to lose what we have, to pay the cost of choosing differently.

But fear alone does not explain why even the brave leave their dreams unlived.

Fear is a symptom.

***

The psychological systems stabilising an existing life are remarkably efficient. They assemble mostly without awareness and are designed to keep themselves intact.

Loss aversion makes the known feel more valuable than it is. Identity stability turns the roles we occupy, professional, relational, social, into who we believe we are. Social gravity keeps people in place without any visible force. Deviation requires explanation.

Dreams move slowly and offer uncertain feedback. They arrive without instructions. The path is ambiguous. The destination, unguaranteed. The brain is not wired to choose a distant reward over a present certainty.

Inaction is the rational output of a well-functioning system.

***

But what disrupts a system designed to protect itself?

Inspiration does little. Change happens when the life we are living becomes more painful than the pain of change. Burnout, a health event, a loss, a sudden confrontation with mortality, all tip the balance. Sometimes it is accumulated regret, arriving slowly until it becomes louder than the fear.

During these destabilising events, the existing system loses its footing. The gap between the cost of staying and the cost of changing narrows. That is the window.

But disruption is not enough. Post-traumatic growth research shows that the same event that breaks one person open leaves another more defended. What determines the difference is not the magnitude of the disruption but the narrative built around it. A painful experience can be read as a message that something needs to change, or as proof that nothing ever will.

Disruption creates the conditions. Narrative determines the outcome.

***

A dream is not simply a goal. It is an identity experiment.

To follow it seriously means risking the current version of yourself: the competent professional, the reliable partner, the person who has things figured out. It means being a beginner again in a life that has taken years to make you look capable.

This is why dreams survive longest as private things. Unspoken, they remain perfect. The moment they are pursued, they become measurable. They can disappoint. They can fail. Failure here is not just failure. It is evidence about who you are.

What stands between most people and their dreams is not comfort. It is not even fear. It is themselves.

The version of you that exists right now had to be built. Assembled through accommodation, compromise, and repetition until it felt like the only version that was ever possible. It is not. Somewhere beside it lives a possible self, with equal claim to existence.

Dreams that survive years of neglect are load-bearing. They are telling you something about who you actually are, underneath everything you have agreed to be.

The dentist who knows she should be a therapist. The executive who built a career in finance but belongs in a kitchen. The painter who set down the brush. The writer who misplaced the typewriter.

Unlived lives do not disappear. They grow heavier. They return as restlessness, envy, resentment. The feeling of watching your own life from the sidelines.

Here is what I know: the pursuit of a dream seems like an insurmountable leap, but it starts with one small step. A misspelled word on that blank page. A terrible stroke on that canvas. The first ingredient on that menu. A single word spoken aloud. Then repeated, over and over again. Until it becomes a life.

Dreams live where possibility outweighs fear. Where meaning outweighs comfort. Where authenticity outweighs approval. They wake up next to you each morning and ask only one thing.

Will you take them seriously?

^{This is a space for exploration and reflection, not medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice. Each reader’s situation is unique and deserves the right kind of support. If you are struggling or in crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional. This edition contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we may earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.}