Recurring dreams and Recurrent themes

There is this dream that I used to have frequently,  till a few years back,  and even now sporadically. There is this research project of sorts that I was supposed to complete in the last term of my MBA.  I haven't completed it till the last moment* and I am running out of time and damn, if I don't complete it,  I don't get to complete my course. And then i wake up

There is also a version of this dream that I have with the B. Tech project I worked on,  as well**. Exact same otherwise

I have always wondered if this recurrent dream had some underlying meaning. And putting my Freudian hat on,  I think there is.  But more on that later.

There is another recurrent dream I have as well, which is even more complex to decipher. Not sure I want to or can even explain here but to give a broad sense,  it is about something ( fairly small, not earth shattering) that always seems like it is about to happen but just stops short of happening.  Again and again. Recurring dream. 

But this post is not just about recurrent dreams but recurrent themes as well. Have there been themes which have recurred through my life? Themes in the sense of the broad picture underlying meta thinking / personality traits that have shaped my decisions / actions or even thoughts? I think there are.  And this post is going to be a brutal evaluation of them.

Before i get to that, a digression.  I realized that if someone goes through many of my posts here,  if anyone is actually reading them that is, they may seem to have this whiny or maybe unhappy tinge to them.  I don't think as a person , I am either of the two though ( I hate to whine and I try to be optimistic to the extent possible,  sometimes too optimistic for my own good, more on that later.). But if you write what is actually truly in your mind and heart , sometimes it does come out with a tinge of melancholy I guess. I don't share my vulnerabilities too openly with anyone except maybe some super select friends, so it's probably ok to do it once in a while in a place like here where few , if any, are reading. 

But I digress, coming back to the topic,  the recurrent themes.

1.  They say you need to get a few real big calls and decisions right in your life and that's enough to be super successful.  Well I think I have got just about every super big decision wrong or sub optimal. Its what it is,  I don't like it but that's the brutal truth! Personal life, career, even streams of education, you name it.  It doesn't mean every call has been super wrong ( i wouldn't say career calls for e.g have been super wrong,  i like what i do,  but the calls have not been super optimal either),  but almost everything has been sub optimal.  Some have been just wrong. Though even bad decisions have had collateral positives I guess. 

2. But why is it that I have got the super big calls wrong? I guess it ranges from

Just not thinking enough about the future/ planning for it. 

Not enough Information or enough effort to get information 

Occasionally,  super optimal assumptions. Actually it isn't even that.  It's just often the assumption that I make is that I have too much time to get things right. Its not like I think that tomorrow will be better ( which is a good attitude to have if you work for it) but that i think that I can fix it all tomorrow.  Procrastination. 

Back to the dream and applying my Freudian hat, was it trying to indicate just that? That if I keep making super optimistic assumptions about what i can do tomorrow,  I will run out of time to do those things? Tomorrow never dies but the tomorrow you want may never come if you don't put your mind on it TODAY.

Thinking about these 3, all of them have an even more common underlying thread to it: escapism.  Thinking about the future is tough,  yes it is tough.  Sometimes all choices aren't great ones. But you have to think about it still. I have indeed found not thinking about the future too much, a good thing to remove unnecessary worries,  it is indeed good to avoid short term stress, but the flip side is the "time decay". It adds up.

3. Extrapolating the escapism for mental peace theme, what are the other consequences of it? And from there comes a few other big underlying recurring themes

You keep continuing with the status quo even if sub optimal. Change requires deliberate action,  even if short term uncomfortable action. Yes status quo bias is one of the other underlying recurrent themes. 

You become too agreeable/ too non confrontational. You aren't willing to stand up for you own self , your own  aspirations, wants, your own desires,  your own rights even at times.  That's another underlying theme I guess. Sometimes it's even ok to feel entitled and do it without feeling guilty about it.

This agreeability is bad enough to do even for the people who care for you or mean well for you ( ultimately you know "you" the best),  its even worse to do it for those who don't give a damn about it, total strangers in a literal or metaphorical sense,  or worse, those that may not even mean well for you!

Its actually gotten worse with age.  I used to be less agreeable when I was younger. Maybe even stupidly at times. 

It isn't about validation. Because I have been through the DGAF phases. I think it's about conflict avoidance. Path of least resistance.  And that ties in well with the status quo theme as well

4. Wiser in hindsight is another underlying theme

We all do feel wiser in hindsight true. But I think this goes beyond that.  I have always learnt the right lesions at the wrong time,  too late to make use of it.  What I should have done in early 20s in early 30s, late 20s in mid 30s and so on.  Beyond a point,  it isn't of much use,  and maybe even counter productive I dare say?. 

Once or twice is understandable but this has been a recurrent theme

5. Risk aversion but with a gamblers optimism to go alongside

I can assess risks in third person quite well. Part of it is what my job / the work I do is all about!

But when it comes to first person risks, I am risk averse most of the time. Unwilling to take calculated downsides for a calculated, even better upside.

But its also risk aversion with a gamblers optimism that pervades my thinking in that I am willing to imagine super optimal low probability scenarios,  and willing to pay a super minor "risk premium" for it.  That itself isn't the problem, you could think of it as a barbell strategy- it may work at times, but doing it over and over is.  We get to the " Time decay" bit yet again. Optionality, like procrastination is good if exercised occasionally and tactically but a losing strategy if you do it all the time!

6. That little bit of insecurity and hesitancy to ask others

Why haven't I been able to make better decisions? Because I simply haven't asked enough. This is especially true for decisions that I could have made better if I just had more information. Sometimes you need to just ask! Ask what you want.  Ask for help.  Etc...

Why haven't I? The irrational me of earlier may have worried about others judging, but the rational me knows that people may not and even if they do, nothing is ever a disaster. Yet I find it difficult , even after knowing this. Its hard to explain. Is it ego? Insecurity? I don't know!

7. I would rather conform to people's image of me,  be it good or bad or neither. 

This is even more baffling but has been a constant underlying theme throughout. Once people develop an initial image of me,  I am happy to play along with that image.  Even so much that sometimes people dont get to see the best of me!

And this is a consistent theme across all facets of my life! Baffling if you think about it rationally!

So thats a few underlying recurring themes I could think about.  There would be more I am sure.  Oh well, just as I was writing the postscript, i figured there is one more and that's related to the P.S

8. Try to go for perfection/ moonshots, then figure out you are running short of time and then do a sub optimal job of it ( than what could have been). Recurrent theme across multiple facets.

* P.S 1: Yes like in the dream,  I did take up a research project in my last term during my MBA and yes I did postpone it till the last moment or rather , did stuff in an unplanned way that didn't aid its completion for way too long.  And while i did complete it in the end,  unlike in the dream, I did a sub optimal job at the end.  Could have done a much better job of it since these were subjects I understood and liked working on .... Unlike P.S 2

**  P.S 2: Also true about the B. Tech project referenced in my dream except that in my defense, here I really didn't understand what I was doing or atleast the real world big picture of it, so in this case it wasn't all that bad to put it to the last minute.