Dreams — I mean the waking kind that shape the future within our minds — are like living organs. They churn away deep within us, the engines that burn up desires and convert them into actions. They keep us rolling across the rocky terrain that lies between us and that ideal plot of real estate we have carved out for ourselves in that idyllic neighborhood some call Happiness.

As with organs, some dreams are not as vital as others; these lay fallow within us, using up little chunks of our time to attain the little things we’d like, but can live without. We often laugh when discussing them, making light of hopes which we deem too unrealistic to take seriously and don’t truly need anyway. Others, however, serve key functions that don’t simply drive us to do what we do: they make us who we are. They are the goals, plans, loves, needs, wants, could-bes, and what-ifs. They are what give us a direction to stumble in. They are what keep us alive.

Some dreams come along unexpectedly, as with a romance. We encounter so many faces during our brief stroll here, make so many greetings and deliver so many goodbyes. Yet it’s rare to meet that person who clicks with you so fiercely that it’s like a flashing neon sign that reads, “Right here, this is the one.” They lift you up to heights to which you dared not ascend on your own. They inspire you such that all your other dreams resonate anew, and no longer seem quite so far out of reach. If you could both explore those feelings, if you could be with them, you don’t know what the future would hold, but you’re more optimistic than you can ever remember being.

Other dreams may evolve all during your young life, as with a career. A flirtation with an idea of who you’d like to become moves on into a passionate embrace. More and more, when you form the picture in your mind of that resident of the future who was once you, that picture wears a uniform, delivers a public address, or grins wisely from a book jacket. That life seems more than you have any right to hope to earn for yourself, and yet so many others have proven the limitless boundaries of what one humble human being can achieve when that organ within them pumps hard enough. The desire to win that life carries you across this hardship and that obstacle and, someday, could just see you through to that lush valley of achievement on the other side.

Then…a dream is lost. Your career goals shun you; your romantic interest dismisses you; your skills abandon you. You are forced to admit that you don’t measure up. Or you are told that you don’t by another. That goal which seemed almost within range of your fingertips but a moment before shrinks away mockingly into the distance. The bolts of electric enthusiasm that have sparked you onward turn around to deal you a paralyzing shock. The reservoir of desires you’ve held balanced on your head as you struggled onward tips over and comes crashing down on your head in a crushing cascade of failure. It feels quite literally like an organ has been ripped out of your chest. If you’re lucky, you have enough redundant ones left to carry you on.

I don’t have any more organs I can spare.