Age makes some dreams smaller and others finally honest.

Time compresses some dreams and clarifies others. The version that was mostly about being seen, or about proving something to people who are no longer watching, tends to shrink. What remains is often smaller in scale and truer in content: the work itself rather than the recognition, the life rather than the story about it. That trade is usually a gain.

Take a dream you still carry and ask what would remain if nobody ever knew you had done it. Whatever survives that question is the honest part. Aim at that, and let the part that was about an audience quietly fall away.