The Fantasy of What Your Life Could Have Looked Like
The fantasy you’re clinging onto is an alluring promise of completion before you’ve even begun.
The reason you’re feeling stuck might be because you’re treating the fantasy of what you thought your life would look like as the reality of it. It’s not uncommon for many of us to stay in relationships or circumstances, once filled to the brim with the promise of potential, only to leave us feeling unfulfilled and constantly yearning for more. The fantasy of what your life could have looked like might be attached to a specific person or circumstance that has proven time and again it isn’t quite right for you. And yet…you’re still there. Still feeling unsatisfied. Still with the inkling that there must be something more, thinking that it’ll be uncovered if you just stick it out a bit longer.
I want to posit that maybe that person or circumstance isn’t and never was meant for you, but was meant for the fantasy version of yourself that you have in your mind. I, too, get lost in the potentialities of who I could be, forgetting that potential isn’t a promise, but rather a suggestion of something that could be. The ‘could bes’ of your life might be convincing you to stay in places or with people whose alignment with you only exists within the limbo realm of potential; not quite there, not quite here, but somewhere in the ether, waiting to be plucked out and turned into solid truth.
While I have nothing against fantasizing and imagination (as a writer it’s kind of the name of the game), I do think that overemphasizing the fantasy before it’s proven itself to be more than that can be dangerous. It can leave you susceptible to wasting your finite time chasing people or circumstances that can’t exist alongside the present, authentic you, only alongside the fantasy version of yourself that envisioned them. If you’re operating from fantasy—fantasy of yourself and of others—then whatever you create is just another fantasy. Everything is built on the foundation of fantasy and facade, easily made to crumble the moment you allow reality to slip through even the slightest of cracks.
The fantasy of what your life could have looked like might have been the only thing propelling you forward for all these years. And while there’s nothing wrong with having a vision for your life, it’s also important to acknowledge and accept that not everything goes according to plan. Your vision is a stencil, not a three-dimensional sculpture—you have to allow for space and time to show you how to fill in the blanks and gaps as you progress through your journey. The fantasy you’re clinging onto is an alluring promise of completion before you’ve even begun. It suggests that there’s nothing left for you to do as long as you hold the fantasy in higher regard than the reality in all its imperfect and unfavourable truths. The present is the only thing that really exists, so to deny it in favour of a fantasy that might be built on an unstable and unaligned foundation of who you think you should be is to deny yourself the most honest and authentic experience of your life.
Anytime I’ve discussed this kind of topic, I’ve gotten pushback about how I’m encouraging people to end relationships or give up in general. I want to emphasize that anything worthwhile requires effort, time, and consistency. However, that doesn’t mean that everything that requires those things is worthwhile. The two can be mutually exclusive and I think we often forget that. Your fantasy might require all of those, but might still not be truly aligned with you. The purpose of all the work I create around this topic is to encourage as much self-awareness as possible so that you aren’t trapped in a fantasy of your life rather than allowing yourself to experience its reality. The reality probably won’t be as neat and tidy as the fantasy, but that’s the point. The imperfection is where the beauty is because that’s what’s true.
So, if you’re currently struggling to understand why a relationship or circumstance isn’t quite working out, I implore you to consider if maybe you’re operating from a fantasy of what you always thought your life should and could look like. This isn’t to say it can’t but to allow space for alternate paths if it doesn’t. Yes, achieving something worthwhile requires you to stick with it even when it’s not showing results, but it also requires you to stay as aligned with your authenticity and core truth as possible. If you’re trying to make something work that isn’t aligned with you, it will never look like the fantasy you have of it because the fantasy can only exist within the realm of potential, not fulfillment. The fantasy of what your life could have looked like might encourage you to stay stuck in circumstances that don’t fulfill you at your core because you’re constantly denying the truth of what your life actually is, in all its messy, raw, imperfect beauty.
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