Landon Saunders (00:00.59)
When they gave Saul Bella the Nobel Prize for Literature, he said the hardest thing he found was to get himself enough dream space. Now what is dream space? Well, dream space is what it takes to create a work of art.
Announcer
Hi again, everyone. This is Heartbeat, the podcast featuring insight and teaching from the more than 50 years of work of Landon Saunders. Each episode is brought to you by Friends of Heartbeat. And on today's episode,Landon explores this idea of the value in and how to find some dream space. Once again, here's Landon Saunders.
Landon
When Columbus started out on his famous voyage, we're told he didn't know where he was going. And when he reached his destination, he didn't know where he was. And when he got back, he didn't know where he had been. Well, he had been to America. Nowadays, America itself has become a place where all too many people don't know where they are, or where they've been, or where they're going. Paul Simon describes this feeling in his song, America. Kathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping. I'm empty and aching and I don't know why. Counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike, they're all gone to look for America. What are we looking for? I believe we're both looking for something. And I think life is looking for something in us. But before we can find anything important,
We must find some dream space." When they gave Saul Bellow the Nobel Prize for Literature, he said the hardest thing he found was to get himself enough dream space. Now what is dream space? Well, dream space is what it takes to create a work of art, to grow a new dream for your life. Something happens when we do this. When a human being can stand up and say, I have a dream, that person has something powerful. He has a place to stand.
Archimedes said, give me a place to stand in a lever long enough and I can lift the world. Well, dream space is where you find that place to stand. It's a place in which you can meet any challenge of any problem. You can deal with your relationship to others and you can get on with it. Too often we just let life happen to us and when it doesn't turn out the way we want, we complain that somebody ought to do something. Well, with a dream you'll be saying, I'm somebody. I can do that.
With the right dream for yourself you won't wind up like the man who had so much trouble finding his clothes in the mornings as he was trying to get off to work that he decided one night to make a list of where he put everything as he took it off. The next morning, very pleased with himself, he took the piece of paper and read, cap. There was his cap, so he put it on. Next, pants. There they lay, he got into them. And it went on until he was fully dressed. And then he became very upset and said, now all of this is very well, but now
Where am I myself? Where in the world am I? And he looked and looked, but it was a vain search. He couldn't find himself. That's exactly how it is with us when we never take the time to get to know who we are. We never take the time to grow a dream of where we're going with our lives. Dream space is the place where you get that question mark off your face. When I look closely at the face of a newborn baby, I see that question mark. And it asks, who am
Where am I going? What does life want from me? I think it's part of what makes a baby so beautiful. And it's also a great tragedy if people should walk with your flower -covered casket 70 years later and the question mark is still there. Now nobody can remove that question mark from your face for you. And you can't do it for your children. Each person must do that himself. Each of us carries within ourselves our own private war, and we must wage it, win or lose.
ourselves, and your dream space is where you prepare for this daily battle. Hemingway said, the world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places. Well, you're strong because you have a dream, and your dream gives your life some direction, and when you have direction you can endure pain, tension, stress, the broken places that destroy some people. And at the same time we can encourage one another. As one man put
We're all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty. Now that's how I feel toward you, a bond, a loyalty. If we share this voyage together, I think it'll be less fearful. In fact, our fears can be turned to exhilaration. One of my all -time favorite lines is this one. It's great to be in a ship on a storm -tall sea if you're sure the ship won't sink.
But I may not be describing you. You may not feel you're out there riding the waves in a storm. You may feel more like you're drifting in a sea of boring monotony. Your feeling may be better expressed in the rhyme of the ancient mariner. Day after day, day after day, we stuck, nor breath nor motion, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. Water, water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink. Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to
What do you do when you feel like your life is stuck? When you're thirsting for life something more, but you're sure you're surrounded by nothing but briny salt water. A sailing vessel in the dense heat of the tropics had run out of drinking water. There was no wind, so the ship had been becalmed in one spot for days. The men on board were about to die of thirst. When they suddenly saw a dark spot on the horizon, it was a steamship. And when it was close enough, the men shouted their need for water.
But the reply from the other ship was, Let down your buckets where you are. The men, again in desperation, cried out for them to share their water, and again the reply was heard as it steamed on out of sight, Let down your buckets where you are. Finally the men, dying of thirst, threw down a bucket and drew up fresh water. They had been sailing for days on millions and millions of gallons of fresh water. They were at the mouth of the Amazon River.
Now this is the first thing we must learn to do. Let down our buckets where we are right now. We're all in a sea and there's plenty of life to go around but there's a problem here. Because when we finally get around to letting down our buckets we often use such small buckets.
Announcer
Well, are you intrigued by this idea of finding some more dream space for your life? Be sure and visit our website, Thisishartbeat.com where you'll find other content that is designed specifically to help you in this journey. Thisishartbeat .com. It's made possible by Friends of Heartbeat. There's never any cost or obligation and we always respect your privacy. Now, let's get back to Landon.
Landon
Do you know who the people are who have the greatest trouble finding this dream space? It's people who feel they've got to be doing something every second to be worthwhile. And if you're like that, you've fallen into the first trap. So here's what I want you to do right now. For the next few seconds, I want you to take a vacation. Just relax. You're totally free of everything, not in a hurry to go anywhere, do anything, be anybody. You just are. You're back at your happiest moment as a child, lying in the sun,
Enjoying just being you? Doesn't that feel good? Now when this vacation ends, remember, you are important just for who you are. You don't have to do anything to be important, you're already important. You are important. So relax, enjoy some dream space. At this point one person told me, it's easy to talk like that, but look at me, I'm so plain looking nobody even notices me. Aha, the second
You may have fallen for the old lie that says your value is dependent on your looks and performance. Let's expose that lie right now. Now I admit, it's not always the easiest thing to look into the mirror and feel good about what you see. And especially if the biggest thing you see is your nose. You have to look around the thing to see yourself. And what are you going to do about that? Well, I've got the answer to that one. Love it. And the bigger it is, the more you gotta love it. Let's go back to that mirror for a moment.
Usually one of the first things we do when we get up in the morning is look in the mirror. Worst time in the world to look in the mirror. You look and you think, why, there's that same old slept on thing again. Right off, you've started your day in the hole. Some time ago I was talking to an audience about how to handle this mirror ritual. Afterwards a woman some 76 years old came up and said, Do you know sir, tonight is the first time I ever heard that I was supposed to like myself and feel good about myself? I've hated myself all my life because I thought
That's what I was supposed to do." Then a little gleam filled her twinkling eyes, and she cocked her head a little to the side and said, but do you know what I'm going to do in the morning? I'm going to get up, go to that mirror, and say, hey, gal, you're something else. The other part of that old lie is that value is based on performance. Now, there is a difference in people's talents and the price they'll bring on today's job market. But does this mean the person who makes $500 ,000 a year has personal while the person who makes $10 ,000 a year has little worth? Of course not. Each of the two persons has basic worth that is not determined by the salary commanded. Human worth derives from the very fact that we are human beings. Not how we look or how we perform. As a member of the human race, you're important. No matter what your IQ is or whether you have a strong or weak body or whether your mind is as sharp as the next person's
Whether age has left you physically inactive, you have worth because you're a person and there are no insignificant persons. Let's face it, your dream may be a nightmare. You're not this, you're not that, big nose, no hair, too short, wrong education, wrong upbringing. You must stop that. You must grow a new dream for your life and you begin that by doing three things. Number
face the facts of your life as they are? Look in that mirror. Face the facts of the way you look. Those looks are yours. Nobody has the right to tell you how to feel about them. You claim them. Face the truth of what you see. You can't change that bone structure or the size of that nose or ears. What you can't change, you accept as part of your own unique self that is not subject to the judgment of you or anyone else. It's you. And that's enough to make it valuable. Accept and love it. And two, form a new vision of yourself as you want to be. The greatest camera in the world is your imagination. Needs no film, there are no buttons to push, and yet it's the key to your life. You behave according to your self -image, and your self -image is based on the picture your imagination is taking of you. If you've pictured yourself as defeated, that alone is enough to make you live like a loser. And if you'll picture yourself as a winner though, that will help you forgive yourself when you fail and keep on going. Feeling good about yourself begins then with a picture held in your imagination of what you would like to do or be a picture of you feeling good about yourself. Spend a few moments each day with that. Looking at that.
Number three, affirm this new view of a person and others that you meet every day. Do you know you're having an impact on the people around you? What kind of impact is it? Are you dragging them down? Well, no more, because now you've found some dream space out of which you're living with new direction. You can affirm in people the very things you are affirming in yourself, and you watch them respond to that. Don't overlook this step. It's too
Affirm in others the things you are affirming in yourself. I once asked a young man what he was going to be when he grew up and he replied quietly, I already am. That young man has faced the facts of his own life and he's accepted them. I can tell you that. He has a vision of what he should be and he's affirming that in others around him. He has begun growing a great dream for his life.
Once there was a young man who found some dream space, he became life -intoxicated. He wrung as much joy as he could from every moment. His face was friendly, vibrant, smiling. His eyes always seemed to be laughing, and everyone he met felt that he had shared himself with them, that somehow, because of him, their day had been brighter. Then one day the young man was brought to the attention of the shadow.
The Shadow had so effectively covered the world with cynicism and dream -killing despair that it found it hard to believe such a life -intoxicated person could still exist. He swore to sober this young man into submissive despair. First he blinded him, but the young man simply turned up the music inside himself and danced on. And then he sent him into exile, far away from family and friends. That didn't work either. It was too late for the Shadow to get this
The life intoxicated young man was like a bird gorged with fireflies. He was too full of life not to glow. In your search for dream space, beware.
Announcer
Here is to finding that dream space in the coming days and avoiding the shadow. Thanks for joining us for today's episode. And we want to remind you that you can find additional materials and more information about the work of Landon Saunders by visiting the Heartbeat website. Thisishartbeat .com. There's never a cost or obligation. We respect your privacy. And until next time, this is Heartbeat, the podcast.
