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People should note that having dreams without figuring out how to get them accomplished is a sure way to have regrets. We are told that we should chase our drea

People should note that having dreams without figuring out how to get them accomplished is a sure way to have regrets. We are told that we should chase our dreams with the idea that if we wish hard enough they will come true - popular entertainment re-enforces it. I think that's why there are so many people that buy lottery tickets hoping their dreams will come true once they have the instant money of a win. But the reality is that only a few people will win the lottery. It's by design. The lottery is built with the idea that only a tiny percent will ever get the big money. This seems like it's obvious but a large number of people just believe that dreams come true by luck. So keep in mind that most dreams are achievable you just have to work towards them by setting up a life plan. -Define dream -Set up a plan to the goal/dream -execute plan until achieved - but review on a set time table to make sure you are heading in the right direction. Start, life really is short.

sgt101 5y ago
I buy lottery tickets because it's fun (for me) to pretend that I will win. It's playing as in "lets pretend" and "dressing up". I know that it's 1:14,000,000 against and I know how big a 1,000,000 is. Dreaming in the longer run is good, and goals can provide meaning and structure in what is essentially a meaningless and chaotic world. Living in the moment is also good, playing is good.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  Sure, but you can also direct all that time, money and energy towards something much more rewarding, with real and very probable chances of succeeding, instead of string of little failures to win for rest of your life. For example I have a long term dream of being self-sufficient paraglider, Icarus dream and all that. I live in a country where its hard to have full course (2 weeks minimum) unless you speak fluent french, which I don't yet. I have 2 tiny little small kids. I have had some recent injuries which delay/block similar efforts. But I didn't give up, waited patiently till suddenly I had a window for the course. Did it, and now looking for spring to continue the momentum, whenever family situation allows it. Some other activities would be much easier (and cheaper) to get into. But somehow I knew and felt that this will be very rewarding for me, combining hiking up and flying down the mountains. I don't call them dreams - those are rather impossible situations like me free floating on ISS looking a dark space around Earth, stars, moon and milky way. Or winning lottery. Goals is much better term for me, there are clear actionable steps to get there. Compared to this dream, paragliding is peanuts to achieve.
  - ihateolives 5y ago
    > Sure, but you can also direct all that time, money and energy towards something much more rewarding It takes 0.1 units of time and energy to buy a lottery ticket, you just add one to your things at checkout. Sure, you could put that $1 per week towards your investment portfolio but hey, maybe? It becomes an issue when people are addicted to it or are harboring false hopes and spend considerable money on lotteries, but as OP was describing, it doesn't seem to be a problem.
- tome 5y ago
  > I buy lottery tickets because it's fun (for me) to pretend that I will win. Can't you pretend you will win without buying the tickets?
  - openfuture 5y ago
    Yes.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ryeights 5y ago
    Well, sure. But in one case you have a chance of winning (although vanishingly small), and in the other you don’t. So it’s much less entertaining.
    - dllthomas 5y ago
      You could find a winning lottery ticket, so without buying you do still have an (even smaller) chance. While one is sufficiently likely that it'll happen to someone and the other probably won't ever, neither will happen to you. I think the bigger difference is probably the prop and the immediacy of the experience.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    I can pretend I'm shooting monsters in my head too, but it's more enjoyable when playing Doom. Though admittedly this metaphor would probably have a sudden drop in happiness the closer to real it got.
- vmception 5y ago
  I buy lottery tickets because I like the privilege of not being poor enough for the purchase to be a tax on me, lottery tickets are often called a tax on the stupid or a tax on the poor, both are said. why not just entertainment? so I just like to think “l.o.l, privilege” when I buy one of the $595 hourly rates from cpa and legal beats my lottery ticket purchases any year, shrug I’ve traded options with a greater negative expected value than powerball
newaccount74 5y ago
I don't think unrealistic dreams have to lead to regrets. I have a dream home, and I don't think I'll ever build it, and that's fine. I like occasionally thinking of my dream home, it makes me happy, and I don't need to actually have it become a real home. Since it's just a dream, I don't have to worry about where to build it, or if the things I dream about are practical, and I don't have to worry about any trade-offs, since it's just a dream. Even if I had a million dollars, and I could afford to build it, who knows if it would even work? There's a reason why real life houses don't look like my dream home, and I assume it's because of some things that I'm not thinking about when fantasising about my dream house. So, I'm perfectly happy with having unfulfilled dreams.
burntoutfire 5y ago
I believe that majority of people don't have a dream.
- Loughla 5y ago
  I disagree. I believe a majority of people have a dream. Source: my decades in higher education working with families and students - literally everyone has a dream about their future. What they don't have is a plan.
  - burntoutfire 5y ago
    Well, for one thing, most people don't go through higher education. Also, I did a Bs+Ms in CS and never had a plan along the way. I just wanted to have fun before I have to go work at some job that I'm probably not going to be too happy about. I'd say majority of people I studied with were like that.
  - derwiki 5y ago
    Actively still has a dream, or had a dream when they were in higher education?
    - Loughla 5y ago
      I would say actively have a dream. I'm talking about the parents of students and prospective students as well as parents and family of kids who had no intention of going into higher education at all. All of the parents, once you got them to open up, had dreams about how their life would/could turn out. Very few ever had a plan on how to make that, but more of a hopeful 'one day' sort of attitude.
  - random-human 5y ago
    or support/supportive people around them - at best. Instead, there are a lot of people who dont want to see others do better than them. From personal experience, directly & indirectly, some of the closest people that we are taught to trust are the very people who shut those dreams down, or at the very least, give support as long as it doesnt help raise anyone 'above' themselves. How many accept that and regret it at the end of life when those people have long since disappeared. Stepping outsides the norms of ones social bubble/society is far more risky than conforming to ones 'place' in the pecking order.
jiggunjer 5y ago
>People should note that having dreams without figuring out how to get them accomplished is a sure way to have regrets. Disagree. My dream is to revolutionize my field of science. This is practically unattainable, but that doesn't I'll regret being a scientist and solving smaller problems. I.e. It's not the destination, but the road traveled.
nathias 5y ago
> So keep in mind that most dreams are achievable you just have to work towards them by setting up a life plan. No, no they aren't, especially if you haven't already won the birth lottery. We're coming in an era of decreasing social mobility, where the majority will drown in poverty.
CaptArmchair 5y ago
If only it were that easy. Life goals and dreams are hard because of their innate complexity to achieve them. It's easy to state "I want to start a family" or "I want to become a business owner" or "I want to climb Everest". It's the execution which is hard because that relies on so many variables most of which you don't really control. Social background, economic background, your health, your personality, your skills and abilities, your awareness of opportunities or lack thereof, ingrained beliefs and biases, education level, culture, current events, family dynamics, upbringing,... The notion that you're in control of what happens in your life is a convenient belief, not a hard fact. It's only when that belief is shattered by hard reality that you start to understand that life doesn't necessarily follow the script you had in mind when you're young. The kicker then is understanding that happiness isn't to be found only when you reach the end of the rainbow, when you finally achieve the dream. It's there along the road, between the rubble and troubles that life throws at you. It's found in what you make out of each day you're given in good health.
- vianneychevalie 5y ago
  I'm young and that's probably the reason why I'm less cynical. Hurdles can't be a reason not to run the race. For me it's like project management: you're 100% sure that nothing is going to go according to the plan, and that you'll end up far from the target, but still, planning is better than not planning. And adapting the plan along the way is best.
  - CaptArmchair 5y ago
    Absolutely! There's value in planning for your life and at least trying to act on your plan. Even so, learning when and how to adapt or abandon your plans, well, that's an art form which takes a lifetime to perfect. Then there are things in life you can't really prepare yourself for because they are, well, life altering. For instance, when you marry, there's only so much you can do to prepare for the probability of losing your partner through death and divorce. The practicalities, such as notary's and testaments, are fairly trivial to deal with. Living through the experience and confronting yourself with reality as it happens? That's a wholly different ball game.
vmception 5y ago
Have capital Dont not have capital
circlefavshape 5y ago
Why you should give up on your dreams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ZnfCmTJMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ZnfCmTJMY
- polypodiopsi 5y ago
  That one is really good.
polypodiopsi 5y ago
You're aware that one of the most common regrets in the article is to have laboured too much? Not sure if thats your intention bit it really reads like in the face of that youre reaction is "work(labour) harder" to get fullfillment.
EL_Loco 5y ago
I buy lottery tickets when the prize is really large. My four best friends and I will chip in and we'll buy a few tickets. Then we'll spend the next week or two on our whatsapp group having fun about what dumb s*t each one will do with the money, what kinds of pranks we'll be able to lay on each other, etc. It's lots of fun and for about ten bucks, it's money very well spent. It wouldn't be this fun if we were just pretending to have bought tickets.

sgt101 5y ago

I buy lottery tickets because it's fun (for me) to pretend that I will win. It's playing as in "lets pretend" and "dressing up". I know that it's 1:14,000,000 against and I know how big a 1,000,000 is. Dreaming in the longer run is good, and goals can provide meaning and structure in what is essentially a meaningless and chaotic world. Living in the moment is also good, playing is good.

saiya-jin 5y ago
Sure, but you can also direct all that time, money and energy towards something much more rewarding, with real and very probable chances of succeeding, instead of string of little failures to win for rest of your life. For example I have a long term dream of being self-sufficient paraglider, Icarus dream and all that. I live in a country where its hard to have full course (2 weeks minimum) unless you speak fluent french, which I don't yet. I have 2 tiny little small kids. I have had some recent injuries which delay/block similar efforts. But I didn't give up, waited patiently till suddenly I had a window for the course. Did it, and now looking for spring to continue the momentum, whenever family situation allows it. Some other activities would be much easier (and cheaper) to get into. But somehow I knew and felt that this will be very rewarding for me, combining hiking up and flying down the mountains. I don't call them dreams - those are rather impossible situations like me free floating on ISS looking a dark space around Earth, stars, moon and milky way. Or winning lottery. Goals is much better term for me, there are clear actionable steps to get there. Compared to this dream, paragliding is peanuts to achieve.
- ihateolives 5y ago
  > Sure, but you can also direct all that time, money and energy towards something much more rewarding It takes 0.1 units of time and energy to buy a lottery ticket, you just add one to your things at checkout. Sure, you could put that $1 per week towards your investment portfolio but hey, maybe? It becomes an issue when people are addicted to it or are harboring false hopes and spend considerable money on lotteries, but as OP was describing, it doesn't seem to be a problem.
tome 5y ago
> I buy lottery tickets because it's fun (for me) to pretend that I will win. Can't you pretend you will win without buying the tickets?
- openfuture 5y ago
  Yes.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ryeights 5y ago
  Well, sure. But in one case you have a chance of winning (although vanishingly small), and in the other you don’t. So it’s much less entertaining.
  - dllthomas 5y ago
    You could find a winning lottery ticket, so without buying you do still have an (even smaller) chance. While one is sufficiently likely that it'll happen to someone and the other probably won't ever, neither will happen to you. I think the bigger difference is probably the prop and the immediacy of the experience.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  I can pretend I'm shooting monsters in my head too, but it's more enjoyable when playing Doom. Though admittedly this metaphor would probably have a sudden drop in happiness the closer to real it got.
vmception 5y ago
I buy lottery tickets because I like the privilege of not being poor enough for the purchase to be a tax on me, lottery tickets are often called a tax on the stupid or a tax on the poor, both are said. why not just entertainment? so I just like to think “l.o.l, privilege” when I buy one of the $595 hourly rates from cpa and legal beats my lottery ticket purchases any year, shrug I’ve traded options with a greater negative expected value than powerball

newaccount74 5y ago

I don't think unrealistic dreams have to lead to regrets. I have a dream home, and I don't think I'll ever build it, and that's fine. I like occasionally thinking of my dream home, it makes me happy, and I don't need to actually have it become a real home. Since it's just a dream, I don't have to worry about where to build it, or if the things I dream about are practical, and I don't have to worry about any trade-offs, since it's just a dream. Even if I had a million dollars, and I could afford to build it, who knows if it would even work? There's a reason why real life houses don't look like my dream home, and I assume it's because of some things that I'm not thinking about when fantasising about my dream house. So, I'm perfectly happy with having unfulfilled dreams.

burntoutfire 5y ago

I believe that majority of people don't have a dream.

Loughla 5y ago
I disagree. I believe a majority of people have a dream. Source: my decades in higher education working with families and students - literally everyone has a dream about their future. What they don't have is a plan.
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  Well, for one thing, most people don't go through higher education. Also, I did a Bs+Ms in CS and never had a plan along the way. I just wanted to have fun before I have to go work at some job that I'm probably not going to be too happy about. I'd say majority of people I studied with were like that.
- derwiki 5y ago
  Actively still has a dream, or had a dream when they were in higher education?
  - Loughla 5y ago
    I would say actively have a dream. I'm talking about the parents of students and prospective students as well as parents and family of kids who had no intention of going into higher education at all. All of the parents, once you got them to open up, had dreams about how their life would/could turn out. Very few ever had a plan on how to make that, but more of a hopeful 'one day' sort of attitude.
- random-human 5y ago
  or support/supportive people around them - at best. Instead, there are a lot of people who dont want to see others do better than them. From personal experience, directly & indirectly, some of the closest people that we are taught to trust are the very people who shut those dreams down, or at the very least, give support as long as it doesnt help raise anyone 'above' themselves. How many accept that and regret it at the end of life when those people have long since disappeared. Stepping outsides the norms of ones social bubble/society is far more risky than conforming to ones 'place' in the pecking order.

jiggunjer 5y ago

>People should note that having dreams without figuring out how to get them accomplished is a sure way to have regrets. Disagree. My dream is to revolutionize my field of science. This is practically unattainable, but that doesn't I'll regret being a scientist and solving smaller problems. I.e. It's not the destination, but the road traveled.

nathias 5y ago

> So keep in mind that most dreams are achievable you just have to work towards them by setting up a life plan. No, no they aren't, especially if you haven't already won the birth lottery. We're coming in an era of decreasing social mobility, where the majority will drown in poverty.

CaptArmchair 5y ago

If only it were that easy. Life goals and dreams are hard because of their innate complexity to achieve them. It's easy to state "I want to start a family" or "I want to become a business owner" or "I want to climb Everest". It's the execution which is hard because that relies on so many variables most of which you don't really control. Social background, economic background, your health, your personality, your skills and abilities, your awareness of opportunities or lack thereof, ingrained beliefs and biases, education level, culture, current events, family dynamics, upbringing,... The notion that you're in control of what happens in your life is a convenient belief, not a hard fact. It's only when that belief is shattered by hard reality that you start to understand that life doesn't necessarily follow the script you had in mind when you're young. The kicker then is understanding that happiness isn't to be found only when you reach the end of the rainbow, when you finally achieve the dream. It's there along the road, between the rubble and troubles that life throws at you. It's found in what you make out of each day you're given in good health.

vianneychevalie 5y ago
I'm young and that's probably the reason why I'm less cynical. Hurdles can't be a reason not to run the race. For me it's like project management: you're 100% sure that nothing is going to go according to the plan, and that you'll end up far from the target, but still, planning is better than not planning. And adapting the plan along the way is best.
- CaptArmchair 5y ago
  Absolutely! There's value in planning for your life and at least trying to act on your plan. Even so, learning when and how to adapt or abandon your plans, well, that's an art form which takes a lifetime to perfect. Then there are things in life you can't really prepare yourself for because they are, well, life altering. For instance, when you marry, there's only so much you can do to prepare for the probability of losing your partner through death and divorce. The practicalities, such as notary's and testaments, are fairly trivial to deal with. Living through the experience and confronting yourself with reality as it happens? That's a wholly different ball game.

vmception 5y ago

Have capital Dont not have capital

circlefavshape 5y ago

Why you should give up on your dreams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ZnfCmTJMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ZnfCmTJMY

polypodiopsi 5y ago
That one is really good.

polypodiopsi 5y ago

You're aware that one of the most common regrets in the article is to have laboured too much? Not sure if thats your intention bit it really reads like in the face of that youre reaction is "work(labour) harder" to get fullfillment.

EL_Loco 5y ago

I buy lottery tickets when the prize is really large. My four best friends and I will chip in and we'll buy a few tickets. Then we'll spend the next week or two on our whatsapp group having fun about what dumb s*t each one will do with the money, what kinds of pranks we'll be able to lay on each other, etc. It's lots of fun and for about ten bucks, it's money very well spent. It wouldn't be this fun if we were just pretending to have bought tickets.