Is Daydreaming Distracting?

"You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.” ~Neil Gaiman

It was a Garry Marshall book I read where he talked about how baseball teaches us where we should be in life. He liked being the Umpire, so naturally he gravitated towards being the Director. I remember he gave me the book after I worked with him in Toronto on a TV show. The book was called ‘Wake Me When It’s Funny’. What I got from the book was the ability to focus my career. It wasn’t one of these acting books that says, ‘So you Wanna Be an Actor’ and then gives you bullet points on how to do that.

It prompted me to consider what I was good at, matched my character to the best part of that field and I realized that writing was my passion. I did enjoy the acting I did, but I don’t love it enough to do it all day long so somehow Garry knew this about people. He could recognize where people belonged in the entertainment industry just based on what part of the baseball field they excelled in.

Garry’s career started as a result of being a sick child. While he is a stellar director and very good at it, writing is where he has invested the majority of his time. He practically lived in his bed and told me he has over 120 allergies which made raising him extraordinarily difficult. Daydreaming was the catalyst for him, but he learned to see the humor in everything. His book ‘Wake Me When It’s Funny’ was his way of saying humor was the only thing holding his interest. I think it’s great that he identified the part of his life that gave him the most joy. If you have seen any of his TV Shows like Happy Days or Laverne & Shirley, his sick childhood didn’t seem to hold him back from daydreaming his way into a solid career.

Daydreaming can be a hurdle. I’ve talked before about how daydreaming of girls and boys in school kills the learning process, but is there a way we can actualize our daydreaming?

Most of my daydreaming in my life has either been about relationships or material acquisitions. You may have met someone who lives thousands of miles away and you wish you could be with them so you look out the window as though longing for something will get you there. You may dream of having a big house and then your daydreaming takes you on a thought process where you are picking out linens and window coverings, but your bank balance is sitting in the hole. I have found this kind of daydreaming to be crippling. It’s not inspiring and it doesn’t go anywhere.

I think Garry knew that he had been dealt the sick card as a child and he could either just lie in a depressed state about it, or he could recognize that he thankfully wasn’t allergic to his pen and paper and he ran with that. Before looking at lofty almost unattainable goals, I think it’s more important to get in touch with our spirit like he did. He seemed to be forced to choose his career and sometimes life hands us some really crappy cards where we have to be forced to make decisions. I recognize that I am really a home body, so I have been setting myself up for years to work at home. Had I gone the acting route, I am sure that sitting on sets for 18-20 hours a day like I was doing would have become old and I would have longed for my hiking and my animals! At the time, acting seemed like a better choice. I am glad I read his book and I am glad that I re-routed myself at the time I did because writing, whether songs, blogs or creative writing gives me so much joy. I am thankful I wasn’t sick as a child like he was, but I am envious he found his career so early!

After realizing what I loved, what I felt good at and what matched my personality, I had to streamline my daydreaming. I have learned to daydream about the journey and the process now which is a bit tricky. If you want a house in the country, you can’t fantasize about how you would decorate it, you have to give some thought to how you would pay for it and assert your energy in that direction. Valuable time gets wasted imagining friends coming over on Saturday nights, backyard BBQs and what color your furnishings will be. There’s lots of time for those things when the goal is realized.

How can we put the same creative effort into our work? We all seem to know how to dream about the potential soul mate, but how about brainstorming some ways to get our career healthy instead? I believe that by refocusing our thoughts into things that can be tangible will assist us in arriving at our goals anyways. Then, when you are ready to make the move into that new relationship or home or whatever you can think about all that stuff then.

I believe there’s a time to think about everything…in its time. Creative thinking and brainstorming feels way better than fantasizing about things which if they don’t happen can throw us deeper into Depression.

I throw like a girl,

Karen :)

“Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.” ~Joseph Addison