There is a secret uncertainty in our dreams that drives us to seed and re-seed them time and time again, for even as we harvest the hope at the heart of each one, no sooner does its luster fade then . . . off we run!

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As paradoxical as it may seem, the more we dream and scheme to win from this world of passing time what we imagine will complete us, the further away we drift from a Timeless world, within us, wherein alone it is possible to realize what can make us whole.

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Question: Our dreams can take us to places we have never been, but I think the dream is the journey that must always be taken. Life’s hard aches are there to strengthen us, so that on our journey we will appreciate and succeed in our dream. If we decide to quit, then the dream goes away, but if we continue to press forward, then we end up stronger, smarter, and if it doesn’t kill us, we become better people for what we have learned.

It seems that your approach is designed for people who don’t recognize the benefit of turbulence and the options to overcome those turbulent times, thus surmising that quitting is the appropriate answer.

Was it not hard to built the first functional airplane? How about Ben Franklin’s endless endeavors? How many times did Abraham Lincoln fail before he became a great President?

Answer: While there is truth in your assertions, it seems you have not seen the extent of the possibilities before us. Surely one can struggle to win, to “not quit,” and his efforts will purify his search, ultimately leaving him a “winner” because he persisted through his own unseen mental or emotional limitations. This paradigm explains the great men like Edison, Franklin, or whomever one embraces. So, in brief, I agree that there is truth to the notion that “winners never quit.”

But Wise men do not begin — nor suffer over — what cannot be won. What does this mean?

There is a dream that defeats us at every turn, that mocks those who suffer for its realization: we cannot make ourselves Real. Regardless of how many times we suffer reality to manifest our goals and maybe achieve them, we do not ever find the Peace these same hopes held for us at their outset. In a word, our hopes in things seen, in things of time and circumstance, betray us because — as a great man once told me, “It is wise to seek immortality, because time defeats all other ambitions.” (Vernon Howard)

Either we see the Truth in this or we do not. If we do, then our pursuits gradually take on the character of one coming awake instead of one going deeper in the dream that he can keep the life he only dreams he has. The choice is ours. Then the purpose of the work that I do is to ensure we all know that such a choice exists.