Paint Your Dream.

When someone tells you, "Go follow your dream" or "Do what you love to do," is it just a cliché? Or is it a phrase that a person will say just as they would say “good-luck?” It is easy to be told that we can achieve anything we want in life as long as we work hard. It is true that in order to achieve our "dreams," it requires a lot of hard work. However, it is more than just working hard. What we sometimes fail to realize, is that we sometimes cannot identify what a dream is. Could a dream be a Lamborghini you’ve always wanted? Perhaps, maybe a big beautiful modern home? Or is it a purpose that we are trying to create for ourselves? Well, it can be anything you want it to be, but for this article, we are focusing on creating our own purpose in life.

As we already know, the key to enjoying life to the fullest is by living out our dreams. If we dig deeper on why dreams help in enjoying life, we'll find that dreams bring us happiness. There you go! The reason we want to live out our dreams, is because we want to be happy. It makes sense, right? But here’s my question, how can we achieve fulfilling happiness? Hmm... By finding the exact purpose for our existence on earth.

A purpose can be something you enjoy doing or being with someone you love. However, finding our purpose can be very difficult, as it is different for everyone. That's why we're all unique for a reason.

In order to find the purpose as to why we exist, we must start with ourselves. Forget the dream car, forget the beautiful home, forget anything that is not you. Let’s focus on YOU and only YOU. You see when you were born, you were born with nothing... well, except your eyes, hair, mouth and other body parts, of course. The point of what I'm trying to state is that we were born with no identity or personality. In other words, babies are like a blank piece of paper that has not been written on. However, as we age day by day, our mind starts to construct an identity and personality based on what we observe daily. As we get older, we start to learn about what we like and what we dislike. Once we reach the point where we are able to think and understand, then we start to understand what makes us happy and what makes us upset. So, what do babies have to do with dreams? What we’ve learned here is that our dreams are slowly being created since we’re babies. For example, if someone loves to sing and their dream is to become a singer, it is likely that the person discovered music at a very early age. If someone wants to be a public speaker or an actor, it is likely that the person received a lot of attention when they were younger and they enjoyed it. If someone wants to be a doctor or a police officer, it is likely that they liked helping others when they were younger.

Dreams are pretty much doing things that make us happy. As I mentioned before, if you want to be a doctor, it is because helping others is what makes you happy. Of course, not everyone’s dreams come from when they were young. Some discover them later on in life. But many of us already know what makes us happy, it’s just that we don't fully realize it because we're distracted by many other things. Therefore, don't be afraid to explore yourself a little more because there's a lot more you still need to learn about yourself. Don't be afraid to spend a long period of time discovering things you did not know about yourself because that’s what helps build a purpose of your own. Once you have discovered what makes you happy, then start painting (not literally) the dream that offers you that purpose, in other words try to make your goal or dream based on your particular purpose rather than money or materialistic things. Because having cool materialistic things does offer happiness, but it is only for a temporary period of time. Now, having a great purpose is what offers long-term happiness.

Once you’ve found yourself, then you're ready to take on a great adventure full of living. But if you still don't know what your purpose is, don't worry, keep on digging until you finally unlock who you are.

-Miguel A. Lemus