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The Dream I Can’t See Yet · Just Julia

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The dream I can't see yet.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid of the future right now.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: There, I said it.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what my professional life will look like six months from now.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Will I take another corporate job?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Will I build something of my own?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Will one of the ideas filling notebooks and notes folders become something real?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Will I end up doing something I haven't even thought of yet?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't particularly enjoy not knowing.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have spent most of my adult life moving forward.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: There was always another goal,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: another country, another opportunity, another version of myself I was becoming.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now for perhaps the first time in a long time I can't see very far ahead.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when you can't see what comes next, fear is very good at offering directions.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Take the safe option.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hurry.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't fall behind.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Be realistic.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Find another title.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure everyone knows you're still doing well.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Fear can sound remarkably sensible.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Which is why lately I have been asking myself a different question.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: How do you hear your own voice when fear is the loudest voice in the room?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a small town in Brazil.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: When I was young, I had what felt like an enormous dream.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to live abroad.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: That was it.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't have described the life I have now because I didn't know
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: a life like this was available to me.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: At 17 I went to New Zealand.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Later came Italy, Milan, New York, the United Nations, an international career.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: People, places,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: and experiences that the girl who first dreamed
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: of leaving Brazil didn't even have references for.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Her dream came true.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But something else happened too.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Life became bigger than the dream.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about that a lot lately.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because here I am again, standing somewhere I cannot see beyond.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps I'm making the same mistake.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps I'm assuming that because I cannot imagine what comes next,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: there is nothing beyond what I can currently imagine.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: We spend so much of our lives following directions.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Some come from our families,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: some from the culture we grew up in,
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: some from LinkedIn,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: some from Instagram,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: some from the younger versions of ourselves who decided years ago what
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: a successful life was supposed to look like.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Study, build a career,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: earn more,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: get the title, find the partner, create the family, buy the things, keep moving.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And none of those things is wrong.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted many of them.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I still want many of them.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens when you arrive at some of the destinations
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: and something inside you quietly whispers, there is more.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not I need more, that's different.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not a bigger house.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: A better body.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: A more impressive title.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Another country stamped into a passport.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: More within me.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Something I haven't expressed yet.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Something I haven't given yet.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Something I may not even have language for yet.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've started thinking of it as an inner GPS.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that mine is competing with a lot of noise right now.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Fear wants certainty.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: My CV wants continuity.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: The world likes an easily explainable next step.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I would quite like someone to hand me a map and say, here, this is why all of this happened.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you're going.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Everything will work out.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has handed me that map.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, I'm learning to listen differently.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's what an inner GPS actually requires,
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: not knowing the entire route,
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: just becoming quiet enough to recognize the next truthful turn.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Today, I heard Mel Robbins say something that stayed with me.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Purpose is not the thing that you do.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Purpose is the thing that happens in others when you do the things that you do.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I had been asking the first question, what am I supposed to do?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Another corporate job?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Writing?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: A business?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: A project for children?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Something completely different?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe I've been asking purpose to give me a job description.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: What if the better question is, what happens in other people because I was here?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: That question made me look backwards.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not at my CV.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: At my life.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I began noticing something.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: There were years when I didn't feel beautiful.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I remember being the girl who wasn't chosen by the boys at school
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: and quietly absorbing what I thought that said about me.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it is to carry an old version of yourself long
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: after everyone else has forgotten her.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And today,
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: when I think about writing for women,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: I want that woman to know
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: that being unseen once does not make her invisible forever.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I spent years building a professional identity.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then, suddenly,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: I found myself without the title I had become accustomed to putting beneath my name.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: It hurt.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: It still hurts.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: But now I find myself wanting to tell the woman going through the same thing.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Your title described what you did.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: It never contained everything you are.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think about my son.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: I discovered affirmations, breathing, self-talk, and so much of this inner work as an adult.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the questions I keep coming back to is, why should he have to wait that long?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Why should children spend decades undoing beliefs about themselves
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: when perhaps we can help them build a kinder inner voice from the beginning?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly, things that once felt disconnected begin to look a little less disconnected.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I believe every painful thing that happened to me was sent to teach me a lesson.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Some things just hurt.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I am beginning to wonder whether what I didn't receive can become something I give.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's one way pain stops being only pain.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in God.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I also know that not everyone reading this uses that word.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe for you it is God, the universe, life, a life force, something greater than yourself.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: The name matters less to me than the feeling behind it.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: There is a prayer I find myself returning to lately.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not give me the job.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not make this idea successful.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not even show me exactly what my purpose is.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Something simpler.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Show me where I can be useful.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Show me what I have that can serve.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Take what I've lived,
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: the beautiful parts and the painful ones,
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: and help me do something worthwhile with it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Use me for something bigger than my fear.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could finish this essay by telling you that once I understood this,
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: the fear disappeared.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am still afraid.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: I still want security.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I still wonder what my work will look like six months from now.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I still have moments when I would much rather know the destination
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: than practice trusting the next turn.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: But then I remember that girl in Brazil.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Her biggest dream was to live abroad.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: She had absolutely no idea.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: She couldn't see New Zealand.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: She couldn't see Milan.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: She couldn't see New York.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: She couldn't see the people she would love,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: the work she would do, the family she would build, or the woman she would become.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: She could only dream as far as she could see.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And life went further.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe yours has too.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there was once something you desperately wanted that,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: looking backwards, was only the doorway to a life you couldn't yet imagine.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're standing at another doorway now, between what you know and whatever comes next.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you are, I don't want to tell you not to be afraid.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid too.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps we don't need the entire map today.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we need to become quiet enough to distinguish fear from direction.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: To listen underneath everything we've been told we should want.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: To ask not only what should I do next, but what is mine to give?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: What happens in other people when I am most fully myself?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: What if the dream I can see from here is not the biggest dream available to me?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what my next chapter looks like yet.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's the truth.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: But once before,
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: a girl in a small town in Brazil dreamed as far as she could see,
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: and her life became bigger than her dream.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe I don't need to see the next dream yet.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I only need the courage to listen for it.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you do too.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: There may be more waiting for us than either of us can see from here.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just Julia.