So many people go through life saying that they wished they would… climb a mountain, move countries or just get that book, gadget, or insert any other dream they have. While we dream a lot, we can forget that wishes don’t come true on their own. You need to put in some effort, maybe even planning to make it happen. Or we get wrapped up in a daily struggle and routine, we postpone the dreams for five minutes, five days, five years and the time just passes with nothing happening. We wish for a better tomorrow but there is no time or will to work for it. I don’t want that to happen to me or my family. As a family, we don’t have many traditions but this one we keep: on New Year’s Eve we commit to fulfill at least one wish throughout the year. I have to say, it is a success with seven years running.

We have our bucket of wishes, maybe more appropriately, a tiny bowl of wishes where we put our hopes, dreams, and quirky desires. With time, we already outgrew one bowl and had to move everything to a slightly bigger one. We are dreamers, after all. But every year, on NYE we pick three wishes out of the bucket. We agreed to fulfill at least one of those wishes throughout the year but ideally all three. Oh, and because I am weird with pre-defined rules, we agreed that if it’s travel, at least tickets for the trip need to be purchased. In other words, if we can’t do it this year, we need to make sure that we are committed to fulfilling it and at least tickets / entrance / fee needs to be paid for. And there is quite a range: from an LP to a trip to Alaska. Every year, it is the most exciting and the most frightening moment as some dreams… let’s just say we are not ready yet. Some people create goals for the year, we collect our dreams throughout the year and make sure that at least some of them come true. While those three wishes have our conscious commitment, it doesn’t mean that we stop here. We will do some things naturally as we go, maybe even forgetting that we once really wanted it. We clean up the bucket once in a while and ensure that the ones we have already done are taken out. Some of them we outgrow as well.

This ritual is so precious for us because it really brings the saying “think what you wish for” to life and it allows us to really live the life that we dreamed of. We might not do all of them but for sure some of the wishes will come true. And this year we are striving to go foraging, go a month without alcohol and/or travel to Macedonia. This is where our dreams are taking us this time. What about you? What do you dream of?