The Rare Luxury of Still Having a Dream

I feel as though I’ve forgotten how to dream. Not in the literal sense: my nightmares are vivid and perplexing. But I’ve lost the ability to wonder with haphazardness—to let my mind meander toward possibility, to imagine that if all the stars aligned for me, maybe the dream my heart desires could actually come true. 

That’s sad.

But it’s true. Somewhere along the way I stopped flexing the hope muscle, too busy training for endurance instead–resilience, strength, survival.

Getting older, moving, changing jobs and outgrowing relationships will teach you a thing or two about people and yourself. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve slowly realized one of the truest meanings of wealth.

It’s a particular type of richness that can’t be counted, only felt. It’s not where you’d expect to find it–in the foreign cars or designer clothes or corner offices. It’s a kind of wealth discovered in the quiet, restless ache of wanting something so badly, it rearranges you.

I wonder if to be truly rich is to have a dream that consumes you. A dream that keeps you up at night not because you’re anxious, but because you’re alive.

Ambition has become its own aesthetic in today’s hustle culture. We create vision boards, daily positive affirmations, and tell the world we’re “manifesting.” 

True dreaming—the kind that costs you—isn’t as pretty as your deliberately designed digital mood board. It’s primal. It’s messy. It asks for everything and promises nothing. Let me repeat that: 

It asks for everything and promises nothing.

Doesn’t seem like a worthy ROI, does it? I think we forget that life is in fact just that: it asks you for everything. All you can give of yourself, at any point in time, during any phase of your life. And it promises nothing. There’s no guarantee the goal, job, relationship, pursuit you’re chasing will work out how you envision it. In fact, it’s more likely that it won’t pan out the way you’ve rehearsed it in your head a thousand times.  

And that becomes expensive. The idea that you could spend weeks, months, years in the pursuit of a dream that could never work out. 

The currency of a real dream isn’t money—it’s devotion. It’s how willing you are to feel misunderstood while you build it. To be patient when no one claps. To bet on yourself when the numbers don’t add up.

I can’t decide if I have a deep admiration or ravenous envy for those who become obsessed with their dreams to the point of obsession. To the point of ruin and resurrection.

They’re the ones who wake up every morning by something that stirs them—an image, an idea, a purpose they can’t stop chasing, especially on the days when it doesn’t make sense. 

They are lit up from the inside. An inner flame fed by the air of delusion and fanned by unrequited discipline. They burn quietly, but steadily–a private fireplace the world can’t seem to extinguish. 

Life is expensive. Rent, insurance, utilities, food, gas. I’m getting a headache just thinking about it. We carefully budget and coupon, sacrificing morning lattes from the coffee shop down the street, just to feel a sense of financial control. 

And yet, there’s another kind of debt, the kind you owe to yourself when you stop wanting anything at all. 

I know this is a radical statement, but I believe there’s a certain emotional poverty in comfort—when your needs are met but nothing moves you. When you no longer want anything badly enough to feel a burn in your chest that isn’t anxiety or heartburn. You go so long without the feeling of inner, genuine excitement, you become unable to detect it.

Maybe dreams are the antidote to this spiritual numbness. They keep us in conversation with possibility, tethered to a new version of us and our reality beyond our imagination. 

But chasing our dreams requires faith. An unwavering belief it will work out. A deep knowing that regardless of the setbacks and missteps, your dream will come true. 

Isn’t this what we tell kids? Never give up. Chase your dreams. When did we forget that was the point all along?

Faith feels expensive in times like these. It takes true courage to still want something when the world is loud with cynicism and doubt. To say, “I’m not done yet,” when others have traded their wonder for practicality. 

Still, to dream–truly, wildly, without guarantee–is to participate in hope. And that’s the most luxurious act of all. 

It’s hard for me to write about the concepts of “rich” and “poor” during a time where we as a society are experiencing the most drastic gaps in wealth. But in fact, that’s what prompted this essay in the first place. 

I believe our material world is a 3D manifestation of our inner world. Our beliefs transformed into daily action. It has me wondering if real wealth isn’t about how much you have, but how deeply something has you.

To me, a dream is both an anchor and an ignition—it grounds you while setting you ablaze. It gives your days texture, your life rhythm, your struggles meaning. It gives you purpose. 

It pains me to think I lost the ability to dream, but I am hopeful. Maybe one day, I’ll be brave enough to dream of a life bigger than me. To wish upon a star. 

Because I am human and I am flawed and I can start again. 

So, maybe this time, I’ll chase what keeps me up at night. Obsess over the idea that won’t leave me alone. Nurture the vision that makes my heart ache with longing. The ache is proof of life.

Because the truest luxury is not comfort or ease or certainty—it’s the privilege of wanting something so deeply that it transforms you on the way to becoming it. And maybe that’s the point: the dream doesn’t owe us its arrival. 

The dream exists to remind us we’re still alive enough to reach for it.