This week's quote consists of three injunctions: "Wish it, dream it, do it!"
According to my trusty Concise Oxford Dictionary, each of those verbs has a different meaning, and could be described as steps along a road. To wish is to "have a desire or aspiration" or "want with the kind of desire that affects the result". To dream is to "have visions", "believe possible", "contemplate the possibility of." To do is to "perform, carry out, effect, complete, bring to pass."
So wishing for something is the first step. Our desire or aspiration may be simple, "I wish I could lose ten pounds" or "I wish I could finish writing my novel" or complicated, "I wish I could do something about climate change."
The next step is dreaming, when our mind begins to ruminate about how we might achieve our wish, whatever it is. This is when we contemplate various possibilities - the research phase, if you like. We might investigate different diets, think about joining a gym or going for a daily walk, or consider how we might carve out some time each day to write. Or we might start to follow news stories about people and agencies who are working to combat climate change, and learn about how we might (in whatever way) make a difference.
The final step is doing, when we move from the theoretical to the practical - we give up sugar, do some exercise, set our alarm an hour earlier so that we have time to write before work. Or we might join a climate activist group, go on a demonstration, lobby our MP, make a commitment to use only eco-friendly products in our home, recycle more, repair things instead of throwing them away.
Most of us need to go through this three-step process before we actually commit to "doing", the most important of the three steps. Yet the first two, "wishing" and "dreaming" are also important, as without them, we might never get to the "doing" phase. And the fire they have lit in our souls may keep us going in hard times, when the diet has plateaued, we're suffering from writer's block, and our governments are still not taking climate change seriously. Very few people have the motivation to carry on trying their best, without wishes and dreams to bolster them.
