The best way to dispel a fantasy is to live it.

Whether it’s traveling the world, the high-powered job, the family and kids—whatever the fantasy is, it usually gets gilded when it lives in our imagination.

There’s often a “happily ever after” flavor to it, an implicit sense that everything will be better once we arrive.

And yet, when you actually arrive, it rarely hits the way you thought. At best, you get a burst of elation and then normalize to it.

You might roll your eyes and think, “I know where this post is going”—another standard lecture that chasing your fantasies is a fool’s errand, so just be present and live in the now.

Well, not quite.

Rather than fighting our psychology—the human tendency to acclimate to new comforts and forget them—and rather than shunning the pursuit of our dreams, I’d say the power lies in pursuing the fantasy and then putting it to rest.

A couple years back, I dreamed of moving to an island, living lavishly off currency arbitrage while working remote and building my financial future. I had this brilliant idea that Puerto Rico was it because of the tax incentives—0% capital gains and income tax after jumping through some hoops and making it your primary residence.

So I went for a week. Got a spot overlooking the ocean. Beautiful room, beautiful view.

And you know what? It didn’t do it for me.

All it did was confirm that I had no actual desire to live there. My fantasy included the beach, ease, low prices, good food, fun people. The reality included unstable infrastructure, tattered roads, limited food options, loneliness, and all the other things that this pretty beach view came with.

Fantasy is one-dimensional. Reality is multidimensional.

The fantasy doesn’t come with the whole felt, lived experience. But pursuing it and turning it into reality does. It gives you the full picture. It lets the fantasy be seen from all sides, not just the glamorous angle.

For me, that’s the best way to quench the thirst for fantasy. And just like a thirst, once it’s truly quenched, you don’t keep craving more of the same thing.

So I say: pursue the fantasy. Make it real so you can do away with it. Maybe that’s all it means to “follow your dreams”: let a fantasy live, let it die, and make room for whatever pulls you next.