Every year, my company celebrates March 4th as a holiday. The whole office closes up shop and gives everyone the day to “march forth” on their dreams. We call it “taking the day off to take the day on.”
To introduce the holiday to the outside world, I co-wrote a short stop-motion film. The stop-motion and film parts of the stop-motion film were done brilliantly by others, so it feels bizarre to claim any part of it, but we’re proud of it, so here it is.
What would you do with an entire day to follow your dreams? It’s a question that makes us re-wire our brains a little bit. Even as young adults, we can feel that our dreams are either in the cards or have already passed us by. Should we be realistic? Should we be bold?
Most of us probably fall into one of two camps. For anxious pragmatists, March 4th is a day to buy that cheap plane ticket, start acupuncture, or at least take an online pasta-making class. Impulsive romantics can march forth towards a zero-waste lifestyle or financial peace with Dave Ramsey. Personally, I’m a dream maximalist. You can usually find me juggling 10 to 15 goals at any given moment with apps tracking my progress on each. To embrace the spirit of March 4th, I didn’t need to add another dream. I needed to not add another dream.
Instead, on March 4th, I spent a meditative day alone. I spent the day alone to discover how I spend my time without work, family, or friends weighing in. It was a day of perfect solitude—a luxury most people would kill for.
But for extroverts, solitude can feel like public speaking. Wonderful in theory and utterly asphyxiating in real life. I wanted to do this day for real, to use my time as if it was precious and not chaff to burn while waiting for external stimuli. I even started using a time-tracking app to see where it goes.
The time went to cuddling my dog, reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons, getting ahead on a tricky work problem, and cooking yellow squash. Nothing that sounds like it would take much mental strength to get through. However, wading into the doubt and exhaustion of a single day of solitude was a test of strength for me. As an extrovert and a human being.
The first step of pursuing a dream is to encounter all of the obstacles—all of the fear—at full volume. You have to listen to all of the reasons you haven’t achieved your dream earlier and admit to yourself that some of those are very good reasons.
On March 4th, none of that fear goes away. Nothing is different. Instead of a technicolor dream, it’s rainy, early-Spring soil. Beginning by definition means we haven’t hit our stride, found our confidence or our voice or whatever. It means we are kind of humiliated. And maybe, maybe we’ll have something to show afterward.
That’s what it’s like to march forth. And, I think, to grow up.
Happy March 4th to each of you.