October 30, 2006
I was a speaker at a high school in my city last month. I asked several teens to share their dreams.
One said, “to be on Broadway”.
Another said, “to have a family that gets along.”
One girl said, “I want to go to college and be a doctor.”
I watched another girl. She was quiet throughout the entire presentation. Finally she said, “I don’t have a dream, but I have a fantasy. Want to hear it?”
Well, the truth is, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear it. Later, she told me her fantasy, which in reality was a dream for any other girl. The reason she called it a fantasy is, according to her, “my dreams don’t come true, so I might as well call it a fantasy.”
She was 14. I don’t know her background or what’s happened in her life, but I do know what it is to look around at everybody else–who it appears have access to dreams and who has what it takes. Things like a supportive family or money or a life that doesn’t insist that you be a survivor instead of a dreamer.
I shared my story with her and told her that if someone had asked me my dreams as a teen, I might have given a similar answer to her’s.
And yet I hadn’t realized two things at that time in my life:
- Your past or your circumstances cannot stop you from achieving your dreams
- There’s a difference between a wish list (fantasies) and taking steps to achieve your dreams
What’s your dream? What’s getting in the way of achieving those dreams?
Tomorrow we’ll talk more about how to achieve your dreams, or perhaps how to start being a dreamer. . .
Suzie
Heather says:
The one that saddens me is “I want to have a family that gets along.”