What Are Your Dreams?

Why is it that we allow life to toss our childhood dreams to the back of the closet? Why is it that some people seem to know what they want and others appear confused? Why do we give another person enough credibility to tell us our dreams are childish or impossible to accomplish? Much to the dismay of those closest to me, I never out grew the “why” phase.

I remember when my sixth grade teacher asked every student in the class what we wanted to be when we grew up. One at a time, with confidence and a pure sense of honesty, we opened our hearts. The excitement continued the following day when she had us draw a picture of us living our dream. I’m not sure what happened to the actual picture I drew, but I remember it with crispness and clarity; it was a picture of me sitting at writing desk.

Life has a sneaky way of slowly tugging our dreams until they fade from our thoughts. Sometimes the tug is from the actions of another person, such as a parent that inadvertently squashes a child’s self confidence as they try to protect the child from failing at something they were never able to accomplish. Other times the tug is from an individual’s lack of courage to pursue their own dreams. These are what I refer to as the “Master’s of Disguise”. Although they are perceived, on the surface they have credibility from years of controlling an individual’s thought process.

On the other hand some dreams can never become a reality. Take a person’s desire to become the next American Idol. After watching the auditions, it became painfully obvious to me that not everyone can sing. But the more I thought about it I realized that the contestant’s heart heard no sound, it only felt the passion to sing. Right or wrong, the heart tends to out trump logic and objectivity.

The point I’m trying to make is to honestly look at your goal and decide if you were born with the required talent. If you were not naturally gifted, then determine whether or not you have the ability to acquire the skill. When I am assessing my ability to learn I keep in mind that the most talented at something often take their ability for granted and can be out shined by those that put in the hours of hard work.

Dreams sometimes hide within a more identifiable dream and remain concealed until you put in the hours of hard work that allow you to dig deeper. Your dreams cannot become reality if you don’t know what they are.