WHAT WILL YOU DO TOMORROW?

Naomi Sherman

WHAT WILL YOU DO TOMORROW?

WHAT WILL YOU DO

TOMORROW?

On dreams that come true—and the life

we never prepared for

NAOMI SHERMAN

Contents

Prologue. The Morning After the Dream

1. We’re Used to Dreaming About the Finish Line

2. The Habit of Wanting

3. A Million Dollars on the Table

4. Waking Up Famous

5. When You No Longer Have To

6. Freedom Without Instructions

7. Your Desire or Someone Else’s Script?

8. The Fear of Taking the First Step

9. The Price of Choosing

10. When Success Has Already Happened

11. A Plan That Helps You Live

12. An Ordinary Tuesday

13. The Right to Change Your Mind

14. Life Without a Dress Rehearsal

15. What Remains When the Dream Comes True

Epilogue. At the Threshold

Afterword. The Next Paradox

Prologue. The Morning After the Dream

Imagine that tonight, something you have thought about for years finally happens. There is an amount of money in your account that once seemed out of reach. People know your name—people whose attention used to exist only in your imagination. You are offered the job you dreamed of. Or perhaps you have gained the most important thing of all: the freedom to manage your time without asking permission or explaining yourself.

The first few minutes feel like a scene from a movie. You check your phone, reread the message, and check it again. Then comes silence. No one tells you what to do next. The day begins like any other: daylight appears outside, you get thirsty, and your phone demands attention. And suddenly, a question you never made room for in your dream appears: what now?

We often imagine the moment of achievement in detail, but almost never the ordinary day that follows. We plan how to enter a new life as if a complete script will automatically appear on the other side of the door. But beyond that door is a space where we still have to make choices.

This book does not begin with advice to try harder. It begins with the pause between wanting and acting. In that pause, you can see that a dream is made up of different things: what you genuinely want; what you hope will impress others; the habit of wanting; and the hope that one day you will finally be given permission to live differently.

You do not need to find the right answer. Imagine that what you wanted has already happened, and do not run away from the morning that follows. Sometimes that morning shows us what we truly want. Tomorrow, you wake up as the person you dreamed of becoming. You no longer have to prove anything to anyone. The day is yours. What will you do first?

1. We’re Used to Dreaming About the Finish Line

A dream usually comes to us as an image. We see ourselves in a beautiful home, in another country, onstage, running our own business, or living a life in which we have enough money without constant fear. The image is vivid because doubt, tedious tasks, mistakes, and waiting have already been edited out. It contains the outcome, but not the process.