living the dream
- Lana S. Price
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
lana price, miro, 2025, polaroid 600, 4.25" x 3.5"
Whenever someone asked my friend Jack how he was doing, he’d answer, “I’m living the dream, man, living the dream.”
He’d say this in a very genuine way, without a hint of irony or snark.
And he was living the dream. He had recently changed careers to become a flight attendant. He also made electronic music and had put out an album. He didn't make much money, but he had a simple lifestyle and enjoyed traveling across the country, meeting new people, exploring different cities, and working on his music wherever he landed.
He was content and unapologetic about it.
I’ve made a dream come true
On October 1st, 2015, I wrote this note to myself:
My trip is another thing I have to do… I want to go for a month! To Japan, and maybe Korea. I don’t even know why! I want to explore Japanese culture and art and eat the food. I feel that I must.
It took some time, but on March 29, 2017, I left for a 34-day solo trip to Japan and Korea. I traveled by rail from Fukuoka in the south to Sapporo in the north, then flew to Seoul for a few days before returning home.
I can look back and say: Yes, I’ve made a dream come true. I’ve done it before, and I know I can do it again.
And even though I took this trip solo, I didn’t get there on my own.
A shared dream
In preparation for my trip, I took language classes at the Japan Society in New York City, and fell in with a wonderfully ragtag group of Japanophiles.
It’s hard for me to imagine this group of individuals crossing paths outside of this class -- the youngest was in their 20s, the oldest in their 50s; we had a librarian, a security guard, a designer, a corporate dude; we were of different nationalities living across the boroughs.
But we had a shared dream: to travel to Japan. Each of us on our own timeline, for our own reasons.
After one of us went on their trip, we would meet up to celebrate, to look at their pictures and hear their stories. Having a shared dream isn’t zero-sum -- just because someone goes doesn’t mean you can’t go. It’s the opposite: it’s a multiplier effect. For each person that went, it made it much more real and possible for the rest of us.
We were living the dream, together.
I've been thinking about that group recently, wondering how we might apply the shared dream and multiplier effect more broadly. Beyond a bucket-list trip, to the bigger transitions in life.
Living the dream today
That story happened about ten years ago, and now it’s 2026. One might say: who has the time or energy to dream during the polycrisis -- this place where simultaneous disasters meet -- when we’re just trying to make it through the day?
Declaring that you’re “living the dream” during what can be argued is a dystopian nightmare might seem completely tone-deaf, or privileged, or a case of massive denial.
Writer and data scientist Hannah Ritchie wrote a post about climate doomers and climate deniers, arguing that they weren’t on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they were actually the same. She said:
“Climate deniers want us to choose to do nothing; that it’s not a problem and doesn’t require any action. Climate doomers tell us that we don’t even have a choice to do something; we’re already screwed and it’s too late to act.
Follow either and we end up in the same place of inaction. That’s a place that we can’t afford to be.”
This trap is universal: cynics say it’s too late to act, deniers say there’s nothing to act on. Either way, it robs us of our agency. The place of action is in between.
Holding the tension
Pragmagical is all about holding the tension. Between the practical and the possible. Between what is and what could be. It’s not one or the other, it’s both / and. With all the wonderful, wacky, unbelievable, delightful, craziness in-between.
Cynicism is a coping mechanism. As are avoidance (e.g., doomscrolling) and toxic positivity. Here at Pragmagical Enterprises, we’re woo-curious, but there is plenty of spiritual bypassing that also absolves our responsibility (e.g., “high vibes only”). If we catch ourselves doing these things, we can give ourselves grace, and understand that we’re employing these mechanisms because what we’re facing is really tough.
But I can tell you as a futurist that I don’t believe the pace of change is going to slow down. So we need to build the skills and the capacity to manage the change within the change -- the transitions that are happening in our lives within the larger changes in the world. It is working the muscle of acknowledging what is happening and feeling the feelings without crumbling.
“XYZ is happening and I’m worried and afraid. And yet, I choose…”
The key is in the living
A dream about some future far-off moment where things are magically better is escapist. But a dream doesn't have to be realistic to be worth having; it just needs one small, low-stakes way to test it and see: “does this make me feel more alive?”
This is the key. The living of the dream. A dream that is being acted upon, today on this earthly plane, is energizing.
It's not just wanting to write the book. It's opening the document tonight, even for twenty minutes, even with everything else going on.
And when you start following the breadcrumbs of aliveness, it may open you up to messages, “coincidences,” and possibilities that are even greater than your current vision.
In a fast-paced ever-changing world, dreaming is a major tool in our resilience toolkit. We need to be able to imagine our preferred futures, and then start moving towards them. Dreams work when they fuel action, no matter how big or small the dream is, or how personal. It’s that multiplier-effect. It’s generative. It’s life-affirming. It’s sustaining. It inspires others.
Today’s realities were once someone’s dreams. So why not yours? Why not ours?
The future belongs to the dreamers
I wonder if you are currently living the dream, in at least some capacity, even if it doesn’t feel like it. For example, are you living where you want? Do you have a chosen family? Do you own your own business?
It’s easy to take these things for granted and just want the next thing, but it’s worth bowing to -- maybe with a bit of wonder and admiration -- the dreams you’ve already realized and the ones in progress. Give yourself credit for the courage it took to get here.
Who else shares the dream with you? And if you’re in-between dreams, or grieving one, can you give that its own time, too?
The future belongs to us, to the dreamers. And every dream we live makes the next one a little more possible, for ourselves and for each other. We’ve lived it before and we’re living it now. Let’s keep going.
i'm lana price and this is my biweekly-ish newsletter. i write about navigating life transitions, bridging practicality and possibility. you can find other writing here. subscribe to get these straight to your inbox.
