If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies.

I like my dreams extravagant and my next steps extremely specific.

Both can fit inside the same person. In my case, they get along rather well.

I can imagine something that excites me enormously, then turn my attention to the most practical question possible: what can I do today to move towards it?

Sometimes the answer is almost comically ordinary.

Learn something. Practise. Ask for information. Get organised. Make an adjustment and try again.

A magnificent ambition can have a surprisingly unglamorous Tuesday.

And while I am working towards that dream, something else is happening: I am changing too.

I am developing the skills, the understanding and the experience to give it a real place in my life.

That is what the butterfly sentence means to me: working towards a dream also means becoming capable of living it.

I can keep my feet firmly on the ground while building the possibility of something that, today, exists only in my imagination.

I find that rather beautiful.

Something extraordinary can be taking shape while your day looks completely ordinary to everyone else.

I keep my dreams to myself. For me, they belong in the life I am building, and I want to give them time to develop there.

I enjoy that private relationship with a possibility.

Knowing why a small step matters. Feeling the excitement of something that is still mine to explore, work on and understand.

There is plenty of enthusiasm involved. I can supply enthusiasm in industrial quantities.

And I pay attention to reality.

What does this require? What do I need to learn? What is possible with what I have available? Where does my approach need to change?

Reality gives my imagination something to work with. It brings the idea into contact with time, effort, circumstances and the choices I can actually make.

The outcome remains open.

My part is to participate: prepare, act, notice what happens, adapt.

We picture the butterfly’s wings immediately. Yet the sentence begins with change.

For something different to become possible, something has to take a different form—including, sometimes, the way we are working towards it.

I can remain faithful to what matters to me and be inventive about how I pursue it. That combination gives me energy.

So yes, there are dreams.

They are staying with me.

If one of them eventually flies past you, you’ll know what I was doing on all those ordinary Tuesdays.

Silvia