forgo - refrain from / ignore / abandon your dreams/aspirations. On a shelf - to postpone something or completely depose of/place at the bottom of your list of priorities. One interpretation of this statement could be rewritten as follows: "It is far easier to ignore your ideas and avoid the stress caused by refraining from the attempt to realize your dreams." However, based on the usage of the conjunction "than", the speaker would of course be making a comparison between the advantage of an alternative to avoiding the stress caused by trying to enact your visions. This would sound contradictory to me. Confusing. Some punctuation (commas) would help avoid confusion here. Anyway, that's my two cents..... :)

forgo (forgoing, forwent, forgone) /fO:"g@U/ /fO:r"goU/ verb [T] (ALSO forego) FORMAL to not have or do something enjoyable: as in "I shall have to forgo the pleasure of seeing you this week." As for keeping visions "on a shelf",it means to put them on hold, postpone realising them. So, basically, the message is that to achieve something, one has to leave one's comfort zone , which is always more difficult than doing nothing at all.