This next part is extremely personal so I’ve been debating whether or not to post it, but if it helps even one person it will be worth it, so I decided that it should be a separate post.
About two weeks ago I had a very vivid dream, so vivid that it felt like I’d been transported someplace else, had this interaction and then was sent back to my bed to continue sleeping. I was standing in front of a young woman with long blonde hair in a long white dress who was sitting on a wooden bench in a very dark place. There was a gentle light shining down on her so I could see her face clearly and also notice the wooden bench, but the rest was so dark that I don’t know if we were indoors or outdoors. In the dream I could clearly hear her talking to me but not my own voice. Everything I said was silent. In the dream I said something to her and she nodded and when I finished talking she smiled and said “After 600 years this is the first time you’ve surprised me!” I said something else and she nodded very thoughtfully again as I spoke and then said “If they are weak, give them your strength. If they are tired, carry them and if they are enshrouded in darkness, shine your light upon them.” The next morning I Googled the phrase because I thought I was just remembering a line from a movie but couldn’t find a match. I dismissed the whole thing as just a meaningless dream and forgot about it.
About a week ago I was thinking about a friend of mine who’s been struggling very badly lately with depression, anger and overwhelming negativity. I had been planning to dump her as a friend because I’m working on surrounding myself only with positive people, but I remembered the dream and felt bad about abandoning her because I knew she’d be crushed, so I decided to try to help her. I told her that she is the architect of her own misery and that she’s surrounded by people who blindly tell her she’s right even when she treats people terribly and gave specific examples of the many recent incidents where she’d lost her temper and exhibited cruel and vicious behavior. I told her she’s not a bad person but she’s been doing bad things. She told me she needed some time to process all of that and I thought that I’d just killed our friendship, but about 4 hours later she called me to thank me for being the first person to be honest with her like that and asked me if I would help her by calling her out if she falls back on her old ways.
Since then she texts or calls me when she gets triggered by something that someone says to her and I advise her to not give in to her emotions and so far she hasn’t had any outbursts. I notice her smiling a lot and laughing again. She’s begun to apologize to people that she’s been cruel to and they’ve been texting me in disbelief telling me she seems like a new person.
For a few days about two weeks ago I was feeling a bit guilty for being so happy and enjoying so much prosperity while seeing so much misery around me at work and in my personal circle. I thought I can’t help everyone in the world, but I can try to help the people I know. People hate unsolicited advice, but I decided that if the same people who observe how calm and in control I am listen with an open mind, maybe I can help them improve their lives too.
I heard someone in an interview a few years back encourage people to think about what kind of legacy they want to leave behind and I couldn’t answer that. Now I have it. Being remembered for accomplishments or financial success has never interested me–those are things I wanted to make my life and my son’s life easier. What I really want people to think about when they remember me is that I made the lives of the people who knew me better, that I was an instrument for positive change that helped people be the best versions of themselves that they could be. As I continue to make progress in my own wealth building endeavors, I want to start helping others to instead of just being a bystander as people I care about waste their lives mired in anxiety and despair.
I’m not claiming that the dream I had was a message from an angel or anything new agey like that, but I do believe that something–my subconscious, God, the Universe, my higher self, whatever–was directing me towards my purpose in life. For the past 25+ years, I’ve felt sadness whenever I thought of my loving grandfather who raised me because he was such a good man and I felt so ashamed for falling so short of him. I often wished that he couldn’t see me because it would break his heart to see what I’d become. This morning for the first time in my life I am proud of the man that I am and I feel that I’m on the cusp of becoming the man that I always wished I could be. I wish all of you the same.
