“I am bubbling over with passion and thoughts of action, only to sit on my hands and see the flame run out.”

I typed these words as I sat across from Mikayla in a well-lit coffee shop in downtown Duluth.

What was meant to be a getaway brought me closer to my problems.
What was meant to be a vacation from the noise actually increased the volume of my inner chatter.

See, I have these hang-ups keeping me from truly authoring the story I want to live.

Hesitations.
Doubts.
Fears.

All of these seem to keep me from traversing forward to where and who I long to be.

I am sitting on unrealized dreams.
Even worse:
I am sitting on neglected dreams.

It is one thing to not achieve your dream.
It is another to not even pursue it.

“I am bubbling over with passion and thoughts of action, only to sit on my hands and see the flame run out.”

To put it another way: I sense a longing into greater depths of meaning and joy. But, in my persistent refusal to engage in it, I have been giving myself over to a sense of futility I have never quite been able to kick.

Steven Pressfield speaks to this in The War of Art when he says, “To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and the reason for our existence.”

There is a level of freedom within the pain when you are able to be honest with yourself.
There is relief after the necessary sting.

To this point, I have been turning my back on myself.
I have been neglecting my ambitions and withholding something good from myself (and others).

Can you relate?

What dreams are you sitting on?
What ideas are you keeping from others?
What is keeping you from moving forward?

More than merely neglecting my ambitions, it is almost as if I have been smothering them, ensuring they do not see the light of day.

I have been hesitant to share them with others, and for good reason: There is power in bringing others into your ambitions, which was exactly why I was staying the hell away from that.

To open this door to others meant certain conversations, which will inevitably lead to me being exposed for a

Fraud.
Wanna-be.
Imposter.

and who would ever want to be seen as any of those?

I have dreams and desires.

Dreams to
Teach
Write
Rework and rethink ideas.

Desires to be
Creative
Vulnerable (yikes)
Original.

“I am bubbling over with passion and thoughts of action, only to sit on my hands and see the flame run out.”

While it certainly takes courage to create, it takes much more to let others in on it.

“What finally convinced me to go ahead was simply that I was so unhappy not going ahead.” – Steven Pressfield