how to revive a dream (part ii)
my travels felt purposeless. how do you revive your passion for something you used to love?
If you haven’t already, read the first part of this story here:
There’s this scene I love from the movie Soul:
The protagonist, a pianist, leaves the concert hall breathless and excited. He’s finally achieved his dream of playing with a professional jazz quartet: at that moment, he feels on top of the world.
But once the high of the performance fades, his face falls. When his bandmate asks him what’s wrong, the pianist says dejectedly, I've been waiting on this day for my entire life.
I just thought I'd feel different.
The illusion of happiness
Earlier I wrote about how I dreamed for years of traveling the world – and how, once that came true, I lost my desire to travel.
As I spent the next few days in Japan struggling to understand what had happened, I gradually realized that I had built up this fantasy in my head. I had led myself into thinking that once I achieved my dream of traveling the world, it would be a fountain of fulfillment that would forever fill my happy-ever-after cup. All I needed was to make it a reality, and the rest will follow! Like the protagonist in Soul, I thought that the act of simply accomplishing my dream would change everything for me – that once it happened, I would automatically become happy, fulfilled.
Psychologists call this the arrival fallacy. “Arrival fallacy is this illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness,” said Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, a positive psychology expert. “[It’s] the false belief that reaching a valued destination can sustain happiness.”
“Arrival fallacy is this illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness.”
Dr. Ben-Shahar calls it an illusion because that’s exactly what it is. As soon as the novelty of traveling wore off, I found that seeing new places can actually get… old. In the past, traveling served as a reprieve of sorts between other stages of my life – college semesters, starting work, etc. But now that I was traveling indefinitely, and purely for the sake of traveling, I discovered that the joy and excitement of exploring new places inevitably wears off.
Without a larger driving force behind my travels, all I was doing was wandering aimlessly. Window-shopping in perpetuity, adrift like a log in the river. I had assumed that the mere act of traveling the world would be a purpose in and of itself. But it turns out that it isn’t as easy as saying I’m going to travel the world! The sense of purposelessness that permeated my travels told me I needed something more.
Rediscovering purpose
We’ve all heard the story: a professional soccer player grows tired of the game. Turning his favorite thing in the world into a career killed his passion for the sport: the pressure, press conferences, and fan expectations have all turned soccer into something that gives him more pain than pleasure. It’s not until he steps into a game of pickup on the street – surrounded by the concentrated, excited faces of kids who lived for this every day – that he rediscovers the pure joy and fun of the game.
As I struggled to deal with my sudden lack of interest in travel, the first thing I did was go back to the roots of why I fell in love with traveling in the first place. What did my younger self enjoy about it? What about it excited me? What did I gain from it that made me so keen to jet off any chance I could get?
When I framed travel in these terms, the answer came easily. I loved traveling because it changed the way I saw the world. I loved meeting people from all walks of life, who were so different from me, who showed me new ways of living, new ways of perceiving the world, new ways of moving through life. I loved experiencing other cultures, learning their history and beliefs and customs. I loved those moments of pure awe and astonishment when my mind simply struggled to comprehend the beauty before me, and the only thought I could muster into my head is my god, the world is so big.
OK, I thought to myself. I’m not going crazy – I still love traveling. But why did it feel so purposeless? Was there any way I could give it some more meaning?
I started looking through my old journals for the notes I had jotted down wistfully as I grinded away in college and at work, dreaming of all the things I would do once I freed myself from the shackles of the workforce. Forgotten goals, half-baked aspirations, would-love-to-do’s-if-only-I-had-the-time.
I found a long list of things I wanted to learn: Spanish. Salsa. DJing. How to properly use my camera. On another page: a fully fleshed-out note on writing a coffee table book. Christ, how had I forgotten about all this? I still marvel, now, at how much we let ourselves forget by way of life. It’s these little musings, I think – these half-whispered daydreams – that slip through the cracks of our everyday routines that truly reveal our innate dreams and desires.
I kept coming back to one note in particular from January 2023. I’d written it a few weeks after I’d left my job:
What’s my ideal life during this time??
• Traveling / new experiences - expansion and growth
• Meeting lots of new people - new ways of seeing
• Writing / photography - see and express the world from my perspective
• Creating Art - creating something beautiful
Was there a way I could put all this together?
A few days later, it hit me: this coffee table book idea – why not start it now? I’d be traveling all over this year, meeting all sorts of new people; I knew the journey would have its ups and downs, and I’d be learning and growing so much. I’d always loved writing, and wanted to put more time into it. I could shoot photos as I traveled, really shoot proper photos, and fill the book partly with photos and partly with prose, essays and poetry about my journey. And maybe, just maybe, this book could become something that other people might actually want to read.
And thus – after a long week of panic, doubt, introspection, and reflection – one dream filled the shoes of another, and künstlerroaming was born.
A new dream
And so, here I am. I’m excited to travel again: I have a new dream that gives me a renewed sense of purpose. But I know this dream isn’t going to fulfill all my hopes and dreams in life. I’m focused on the journey of getting there – the beautiful, crazy process – and not the destination.
I travel with a loose set of intentions for every place I visit, and I keep it all in a pinned note that I remind myself to check every once in a while. Right now I’m sitting in a cafe in Berlin, where I’ve just moved into an apartment the night before; Berlin is a place I’ve wanted to live in since visiting in college (yes – this, too, was in my journal). In this pinned note, it says Berlin – art, creative community, nightlife, DJing(??); I’ll use these as a starting point for my time here.
Above all, I’ve let go of these preconceived notions of what it means to “travel the world”. Over time, travel becomes just life, except in a different place. My globetrotting isn’t the end goal, and I’m learning to better appreciate this lesson every day. It really is about the journey after all.1
The Big Lessons
1: Set your intentions
In retrospect, this seems obvious: be intentional about how you do things. It will give a sense of structure and purpose to everything you do.
But it’s important to remember to set your intentions before you start something new. As I learned the hard way, once things get going it’s hard to escape the tunnel-vision and take a step back to see the bigger picture.
2: Chase your dreams. But don’t expect them to be the end-all-be-all!
I believe unequivocally that having dreams is a net positive for you. They motivate you to soar higher and strive for things beyond your comfort zone.
But don’t expect dreams to give you an additional sense of purpose. In fact, don’t expect anything from them at all. They will not solve all your problems or grant you forever happiness.
3: Renewing purpose: go back to the r o o t s
If you feel like you’ve lost your passion for something, look back to the start. Why did you do this in the first place? What did you originally love about it? What did you hope to get out of it? Whether it’s a passion, athletic hobby, endeavor or even a relationship, it can help to look back on the things that drew you to it in the first place.
Skim through your old journals, your old notes. Talk to your friends and ask them how you used to talk about this thing. All this will remind you of your original why.
4: Finding purpose: orienting around your values
Another way of finding purpose is to look at your personal values and orient your actions around them. I value creativity and self-expression; working on künstlerroaming feels natural for me because it aligns with these values. How can you live your life in a way that supports and emphasizes your values?
5: LOOK UP!
Don’t become so focused on the ground beneath your feet – look up! Lift your head to the sky every once in a while and see the bigger picture.
to be followed by the final part of this 3-piece essay: part iii – an ode to dreams (chase them!).
The World Surf League’s championship tour season just wrapped up as I finished writing this, and it’s been really cool to see many of my favorite surfers come to the same realization.
almost forgot about that pic from Mawi, the sunset day was also super special, definitely an expansive day