I think the yin and yang is real within each person, where you can “dream” and then be realist about it. But I don’t believe in a balance between dreamers and realists. Those extremes will simply fail.

I always took it as him saying that when people are realistic they become pessimistic and thus see their dreams as either too far fetched or too impossible to accomplished.

I agree with you on the self help book thing, most are crap. But, I won’t say that having a “carrot” in front of you doesn’t make you pull the cart faster/better.

ps- I haven’t read the comments, so if I’m repeating… my bad.

I know, I know, I’m off to a bad start here

I’m replying to Susan because can I just say “ditto” to everything she wrote??

I think there are two types of people. Pragmatic/realist/analytical thinkers. And the romantics/idealist/dreamers. I obviously fall into the 2nd camp and YES it is all just semantics. A different way of looking at the same thing.

I don’t think you should knock off the dreamers. We have our part in the world; it is a yin and yang after all.

That being said, I’ll vouch for my dreamer mentality and my lack of focus. Ouch.

Hi Carlos,
Wow!! That’s a great response, but why can’t you have BOTH logic/possibility AND hope/faith in your approach? You do realize that you are having a futile debate, though it is really well written and fun to read! Because you have basically described the two basic hemispheres of our brain, the left side being the masculine, reason, logic based, scientific, practical “realist” and the right side being all your creative, visionary, intuitive, faith-driven, feminine “dreamer” side. One is not more valid than the other. And as so many people have pointed out, you need BOTH (just like you need both hemispheres of your brain) to make up a balanced fulfilled whole.

A lot of dreamers and idealists lack the realist approach and grounded-ness to really plant their ideals and see them manifest, aka “get shit done!” They are out of balance, an extreme dreamer without any practicality to temper them. And I really appreciate that you represented this point of view so fully here. But likewise people who completely embody that other “realist” approach to the extreme, without any ideal or dream propelling them (as Will Smith so eloquently pointed out) often stumble into lackluster mediocrity, too caught up in the base bare survival mindset without any idealistic dream to temper and balance it. You must have both as both have their place. I like to think of it as one gives the structure and order and other breathes the spark of life into it.

**Also: when you, as a realist, are “envisioning a better life as that’s most of what you do” just note here that you are not actually coming from the part of you that is a realist, you are really utilizing your own dreamer/visionary here (the part of you that envisions and idealizes) because you too, realist though you are, have both capabilities.

*peace you guys, enjoy your skype debate, should be good : )

Also, so I think we have to keeps something in mind. 95% of people in the world are NOT looking at life like we do, and the readers of your blog (and mine) do. They are not even remotely close to conceptualizing what realism or failure or harmony is, never mind able to willing to debate its usefulness. Its just hard for me to take these conversations seriously sometimes (including the ones I start) because they apply to so few people. Even Abraham Lincoln was probably not thinking about his dreams or his level of realism. He was just going about life.

“Follow your dream” = good advice some days
“Be realistic” = good advice some days
“Don’t be afraid to fail” = good advice some days
“Play it safe” = good advice some days

and on and on