{"id":2873,"date":"2008-05-05T01:38:01","date_gmt":"2008-05-05T07:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conradaskland.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/are-you-living-your-dream\/"},"modified":"2008-05-05T01:43:02","modified_gmt":"2008-05-05T07:43:02","slug":"are-you-living-your-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/are-you-living-your-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You Living Your Dream?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Are you living your dream? As small as it sounds my dream is only to be content, happy and fulfilled. I am almost there!”<\/em><\/p>\n

A friend emailed me that and my response was “There are no small dreams. I think everyone’s dream is to be happy and fulfilled – it’s just that different people have different ways of getting that.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What’s a big dream and what’s a small dream?<\/p>\n

People often say “isn’t it great that you get to do what you love” and I say “yes”. But I really don’t know anything else. When I haven’t loved what I was doing – then I would find something else. Are we all like that?<\/p>\n

For instance, I remember in my 20’s I was working a lot as a musician in Las Vegas and Nevada. After a while of doing mind-numbing 6 hour sets until four o’clock in the morning I thought “What am I doing with my life?”. As I played I kept picturing myself turning 50 in Vegas – still playing clubs til 4am and withering on the vine.<\/p>\n

It became so overwhelming that the whole experience became that for me: watching the grains of sand of the time left in my life just falling away. And yes, that’s literally what I saw! So one day I started calling from my hotel room every contact I had to find something new. And found an audition opening for a pianist at Knott’s Berry Farm at 8am in Buena Park, California.<\/p>\n

I mentioned it to a band mate and they said “Too bad you can’t audition for it because we play the night before in Vegas.” But I REALLY wanted to do it.<\/p>\n

On the day of the audition I remember finishing my Vegas set at 4am – then hired a friend to drive me from Vegas to Buena Park, CA while I slept in the car. Did the Knott’s audition at 8am and got the gig.<\/p>\n

So what’s a big dream and what’s a small dream? To you reading this, playing piano at Knott’s Berry Farm may seem like a very small dream. But for me it was very exciting.<\/p>\n

When I was six years old I went to Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland with my family. So I had those strong memories. When I played there and saw the families and everyone laughing during the shows – I could remember my own experience as a child too.<\/p>\n

So for me it was “doing something” – making memories for people and sharing in that. Making a connection. Maybe that connection is part of what makes something a dream for some people, and not for others.<\/p>\n

So now Cirque. Yes, it’s wonderful. I know of no other group that works so furiously hard to make a connection with the audience. We are all being pushed very hard, or I should say “pulled” – because the art is pulling us.<\/p>\n

It’s not about getting there, it’s about the striving. Or to say it’s not about the grabbing, it’s about the reaching. How far will you reach?<\/p>\n

For me, having happiness and contentment comes when I feel I have purpose and know that I’m being used fully – to me that is part of the recipe for a dream.<\/p>\n

What a fun life this is – to ramble about and pretend we know anything. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Are you living your dream? As small as it sounds my dream is only to be content, happy and fulfilled. I am almost there!” A friend emailed me that and my response was “There are no small dreams. I think everyone’s dream is to be happy and fulfilled – it’s just that different people have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3C0LX-Kl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2873"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}