What Does Becoming Inevitable Even Mean
In case it hasn't become abundantly clear to you by now, I am making this up as I go. I'm not making it up in the sense that I am just winging it when it comes to writing. But I am making it up because I am figuring out what I am doing and what I want to be doing along the way. I want you to see that I am in the trenches right beside you. I am figuring out my dream as I go. I start on a plan, realize I need to pivot, allow fear to take over, overcome that and make progress, only to start the cycle over again.
That's how achieving a dream goes. We start, mess up, fix it, and start again. I have been afraid to mess up, as are most people. We would all prefer not to make mistakes even though we know that mistakes are inevitable. So I wanted to spend today talking about that word, inevitable. Maybe I should have talked about this initially, but like I said, I'm making it up as I go.
I was intentional about choosing the name for my website. After I wrote my manuscript, I spent a long time thinking about a title. I initially had a title that I used throughout the writing, but once I finished, I realized it didn't fit quite right anymore. I knew that if I had a publisher fall into my lap (I wasn't being very active in pursuing this aspect of my dream), they would have ideas for the title, but I wanted to be prepared to bring my thoughts to the table.
As I wrestled, I discovered the word inevitable and fell in love with it. That word, along with Dayenu, has become a stronghold for me in my dream journey. They keep me level and striving for more. Two sides of the same coin that help me on this journey. But today, let's talk about inevitable. Inevitable is such a strong word. It can be positive or negative, depending on the circumstance. It means that something is certain to happen. It means there is a 100% chance. It means that it is unavoidable. I have tentatively titled my book Inevitable Dreams because I believe that our dreams were created for us. They are part of the fabric of ourselves and guaranteed for us. Logistically speaking, the URL inevitabledreams was unavailable, so I pivoted to becominginevitable. I do believe that on this journey, we are inevitable. My fascination with this word was triggered by two things.
1. A quote by Christopher Reeves
Christopher Reeves was an actor best known for playing Superman in 1978. I have not seen anything that he was in, although I'll probably get around to watching Fraiser someday, where he appears in an episode. He has this quote, though, that I stumbled across one day, which completely changed my perspective. He said, "So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable."
That quote knocked me over when I read it. It put how I felt about dreams into words in a way that I had not been able to do myself. It concisely shared my vision of what dreams are. I truly believe that no matter how our dreams start, whether we feel they are achievable or not, they can come true in our lives. If we work long enough and hard enough on a dream, it will come true because it was designed for us.
Dreams come to everybody, but not everyone gets the same dream. I believe there is something in our core identity that causes us to have the dreams we have. Sure, we all have "dreams" of winning the lottery, but those aren't really the dreams that we are talking about here. It would be great if I found out I won the lottery tomorrow, but I won't be disappointed if I get to the end of my life without ever having the winning numbers for the Powerball. But there are other dreams that I will be disappointed if I haven't tried chasing them. This doesn't mean that I believe we will achieve every dream we ever have. Eventually, we will run out of time on this earth, leaving behind unfinished dreams. But I do believe that with enough time and energy, we could achieve everything we desire. I believe that our dreams are inevitable, and we are becoming inevitable in the process of chasing them.
2. Thanos from the Marvel Universe
I am not really a superhero person. I have not seen every Marvel movie, and I have no intention of doing so. But I am friends with a lot of Marvel fans and married to one, so I have seen a few. One of the movies that I have seen is Avengers: Infinity War. Spoiler alerts ahead, but I am quite certain anyone that cares about this has already seen the massive movie that came out five years ago.
I loved this movie for a lot of reasons. And much of my love is predicated on the fact that I have not seen Avengers: Endgame. But I loved the plot twist of the bad guy succeeding. And I fell in love with Thanos because of who he was. Thanos had a dream. It was a massive dream that took most of his life to achieve. He had grand intentions to save the world, even if he was misguided in how he went about it. He took his dream, and instead of believing it was too big or impossible, he decided to chase it. He made a plan and stuck to it. He pivoted when he needed to and made massive sacrifices when he had to. And because of all that, he achieved his dream.
Like I said, I never saw the follow-up to this movie because I did not want to watch Thanos die and all his work be undone (and I hate time travel because I am not smart enough to make it make sense in my head). I did hear his line, though. One of the most famous things that he said right before he snapped the infinity gauntlet was, "I am inevitable." That only further affirmed my love for the character. I don't want to get in timelines and time travel because it makes my head spin, but Thanos achieving his dream is inevitable in the Marvel Universe. It had multiversal implications, and I know people are still forming connections between Thanos's actions and the current Marvel agenda because the ramifications of his dream echo long after he has been defeated.
I know those are two very different sources that I pulled this from, but I have fallen completely in love with the word inevitable. I believe that we are inevitable. Our dreams are inevitable. And we deserve the chance to fight to achieve them. I have not been as focused on achieving within military life as I originally planned. Pretty much all I have done in relation to talking about the military is complain, which I probably won't stop doing, but I want to actually help rather than just being a venting space. In some ways, I have allowed the fear of feeling unqualified, the fear of researching, and the fear of putting myself out there, to hold me back. Like I talked about last week, fear will be a constant battle. But we can overcome it, and I want to focus on the community that I want to help from now on. And that means believing that our dreams are inevitable. And that we can become inevitable in achieving those dreams regardless of the circumstances that we find ourselves in.