The Things I Think Grow and Eventually Find Me
How the things we repeatedly imagine shape the lives we end up living
One thing I’ve been noticing lately is how many things in my life today… were once just thoughts.
And I’m not sure if that’s coincidence.
Not plans.
Not goals written in a notebook.
Just thoughts.
At some point, I had imagined myself working in a startup environment. I didn’t know what that meant back then. I just had this vague picture of being around people building things, figuring things out, talking endlessly about ideas.
Today I work in a startup. 🧿
When I was younger, I also imagined a version of myself that was independent — living on her own terms, working, creating things, figuring life out. Just navigating the world on her own.
That somehow happened too.
In college I imagined another version of myself — confident, part of communities, surrounded by interesting people, leading something meaningful.
Eventually I became a club president. I even started a club of my own. I built friendships, networks, and slowly grew into that version of myself.
None of it happened exactly as imagined.
But the direction stayed strangely similar.
The Uncomfortable Realisation
What made this observation uncomfortable was noticing something else.
Not only did my good dreams come true.
Some of my worries did too.
At some point I began feeling slightly insecure about how I looked. It wasn’t a big insecurity initially — just a thought that visited occasionally.
But the more I thought about it, the more real it started becoming.
The same thing happened with overthinking.
I used to be extremely stress-free growing up. Then at some point I remember thinking, why am I not thinking about things enough?
Ironically, that thought slowly grew into thinking a little more.
Then overthinking.
Then anxiety.
Which made me wonder if life sometimes grows in the direction of whatever we repeatedly think about.
Not magically.
Just gradually.
The Dreams We Stop Planting
What’s interesting is that when we’re younger, dreaming feels natural.
Children imagine futures without worrying about feasibility. They allow ideas to exist before questioning them.
But somewhere between growing up and adulting, something changes.
Dreams slowly start feeling impractical.
We begin filtering our thoughts through logic, probability, and practicality before they even get a chance to exist.
Instead of asking what do I want, we start asking how would that even work?
And the “how” often kills the dream before it can even begin.
Creativity Begins With Imagination
When I think about it, many stories we love begin exactly like this. In Wake Up Sid, Aisha Banerjee doesn’t arrive in Mumbai with a perfect plan. She simply knows she wants to build a life around writing and independence, and slowly the rest of her life starts shaping itself around that dream.
It reminds me of a line by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry that captures this beautifully:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
Maybe longing comes before the plan.
Maybe Thoughts Are Seeds
The more I think about it, the more life starts to feel like a garden of thoughts.
Some seeds we plant intentionally.
Dreams about the life we want.
The person we want to become.
But many seeds are planted accidentally too.
Fears. Doubts. Insecurities.
And over time, whatever gets the most attention quietly grows.
A Reminder to Myself
This is more a reminder to myself than advice for anyone else.
Life has a strange way of making us practical. Responsibilities pile up. Decisions become heavier. Slowly we become careful about what we allow ourselves to imagine.
And somewhere in that process, dreaming disappears.
But if I look honestly at my own life, so many things that exist today were once just thoughts I repeated long enough.
So maybe the job isn’t to figure everything out.
Maybe the job is simply to allow ourselves to imagine things again.
To dream unreasonable dreams.
To repeat them to ourselves from time to time.
To believe them without doubt.
Because if my life so far has taught me anything, it’s this:
The things we repeatedly imagine have a strange way of finding us.
Thanks for reading, more soon :)
Cheers,
Apoorva 🦉