Where Do Dreams Go When They Die?

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The beauty of dreams lies in the imagined possibilities—the what if? Drawn by the idea of a brighter horizon just over the next hill.

But what if none of those possibilities comes to pass? What if we’re left wandering and wondering? What happens when we crest the hill, only to find that the top is not really the top but continues uphill?

Where do unfulfilled dreams go to die? Do they burst spectacularly, suffering a violent end like a sort of supernova?

Perhaps some do.

More often, I think they die a slow death, starved of hope. For what are dreams but a hope in something not yet seen?

They can linger for years, fed on a steady diet of hope that someday our dreams could be realized. That’s the allure of youth—a unique time when our whole future is set before us, filled with possibilities.

But as the years pass, those dreams begin to fade.

When I was a child, I dreamed of adventure and exploration. As an adult, I settled for the security of a degree and a stable job that paid the bills. And yet, I don’t regret this.

If we all held onto the dreams of childhood, there’d be more firefighters and pilots than we’d know what to do with.

Outgrowing the simple dreams of childhood comes naturally to most of us.

But what do we do about the stubborn ideas that get embedded? When do we pronounce a dream dead? Do they ever really die, or do they just get buried under the guise of practicality?

Is settling for less the ultimate death of a dream, or is this simply us being forced to confront our limitations?

When I first wrote my books in high school, I’d always dreamed of publishing them. As of 2024, I’ve accomplished that. But hiking up to the crest of the hill, I’ve found that publishing is not the summit. The path continues upward at ever steeper slopes.

The dream was never just about publishing but about publishing books that people genuinely enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Perhaps seven months is too early to make any calls on the future success of my books. But publishing has not been what I expected. It’s hard to get noticed, and harder still to find my target audience.

And the more I read, the more I can’t help but feel that my own work fails spectacularly when compared to traditionally published works.

What happens if our best isn’t good enough?

And yet, even as my confidence wavers, the dream persists, fueled by just enough hope to get by.

And while my books have struggled to gain traction, publishing has opened other doors. I doubt I’d be writing online if not for the confidence publishing has given me.

And while growth is slower than I’d like (or had anticipated), dreams are hard to kill, especially those built up over the years.

So often, we have an image of a path to success that simply doesn’t exist for the vast majority of people. When we see successful people, we often only glimpse an image of the end result, when in reality, the fuller picture involves years of hard work.

If success were easy, everyone would achieve it.

But if we never quite achieve it in the sense we hoped we would, where does that leave us?

Perhaps it puts us in the not-quite-so-unique position of relating better to our fellow man. It leaves us humbler and yet more resilient.

If I could leave you with one benediction: may you have the strength to bear your dreams across the years, watered by hope like rain in the desert.

If it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, then I posit it is better to dream and miss than never to have dreamed at all.

Though waxing and waning,
There's enough hope remaining,
Letting the dream live on.