“Ideal” in what sense tho?
I think it means the person you become when you close your eyes and escape reality.
The version of you that shows up when you’re watching a movie or reading a book—or the one inspired by them.
In a way, dreaming up a false reality—one that’s not too unrealistic (like dreaming of being a billionaire instead of, say, the Avatar)—is better than not dreaming at all. Those visions can become maps, showing you what you want and maybe even how to get there.
For me though, I had an “ideal me” version in mind—but nothing in it ever pointed to how I’d get there.
I’ve dreamed of living in my own space—fully furnished, with my own bedroom, a bookshelf stacked with novels and notebooks, a mad-ass kitchen where I recreate recipes from the internet, a mini bar, all the good stuff. But there’s never any clue about how I earn the money to live like that.
Do I work from home? If yes, doing what?
Do I have a 9–5? Am I an entrepreneur?
I don’t have answers to any of that—but I think that’s how it usually goes. The ideal you is all about the output. It’s up to present-you to figure out the process and use that dream as motivation.
The ideal me would be happy—alone or not. Peaceful. These things aren’t tangible, but they’re not out of reach either.
So yeah, I tell myself not to think too much about it—it feels like a waste of time when you don’t even know what steps lead to that life. But then I remind myself: life is a marathon, not a sprint.
The joy is in the journey, not the finish line—because let’s be honest, we all have the same one, and that’s death.
What matters is how you lived, how you spent that journey.
I’m not going to magically change how I think about all this, but I won’t shut the door on it either.
Learning is never-ending.