In a second.

If there was anywhere in the world where I could go in a second, I would always choose to go to the mountains. It might seem as simple as that, yet there is something about being so much higher than everything else while still remaining grounded—a feeling not every place can give as easily. I had a dream once that I could make these decisions about being transported wherever I wanted. Yet the problem was that everywhere I would go, the only thing I could think of was where I could leave and teleport to next. In this impatience of always wanting to go to the next place, I would often forget that I was where I wanted to be before.

I kept looking for a higher mountain to be transported to—one with more snow, one with sharper peaks, or even one with better views. I was flipping through these locations like the pages of a magazine, as if each of them somehow became ordinary to me. There came a point in the dream where it was not out of my control anymore. I was aware of where I was going and could change it in real time. Just then, I thought I would play a small trick on myself. What if I sent myself to a place where I actually did not want to go? Could that make my dream a more enjoyable experience again? Could I fix my own thoughts to be like they used to be before I was spoiled by this overpowered dream?

So I transported myself back to flat ground. A place where I wouldn’t really choose to go if I had the choice of anywhere. It seemed simply boring, with the same landscapes that I have seen for most of my life. Something was different here, though. It seemed new to me in the dream. It was almost like seeing the mountains for the first time. There was more civilization around me that looked like a hill full of lowers, even though I would usually try to avoid it. I guess there was something about freshness; a change made an old thing I hated seem like the best thing I have seen in my life. Wait, hold on.

There was one problem, though. It was not real. It was all a dream. As my eyes opened back up in the morning, I saw the same city I wake up in every day; the dream did not make it seem like this amazing place. Yet it did change one thing. The one thing it changed was that I stopped seeing problems as problems. I did still know that they were not positives, but they did not seem indominable anymore. They all seemed like opportunities to see something different, yet civilization became much more apparent. I still cannot decide what place it has for me.