Is Your Dream BIG Enough?
This is America! The land of Dreams! How BIG is YOUR Dream?
For the Children’s Sermonette, the pastor asked the kids:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Not everybody had an answer – it’s a big question for 5-10 year olds.
However, a few did:
Jackson said, “I want to be a CAR WASHER!”
Derek: “A GAMER!”
Jetter: “A YOUTUBER!”
Marlise: “A ZOOKEEPER!”
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Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority (KHEAA)
Put out a similar question to high school students in the form of a
“How will I change the world after I go to college?”
The answers are still percolating …
How about YOU?
“To get a job?”
Is that all you got?
Some folks have tiny dreams: They just want an “allowance” … not even a “job”. They need just enough to get them through the next week and maybe the next weekend.
But weeks and weekends living from allowance to allowance or paycheck to paycheck turn gradually into years. The work is often demeaning and the associates uninspiring. And the financial return from tiny dreams is … well … TINY… hardly enough to survive, let alone thrive. Emergencies happen, credit scores tank, needs get larger, wants get larger, debts accumulate, and “independence”, in general, gets a lot more expensive.
Unfortunately, too many fail to understand or appreciate what it really takes to “Make It” in life. With a couple of quarters in your pocket and a five dollar bill in your wallet, the world may seem like a shining “oyster”. But, early in the going, it’s hard to tell how much money you’re really going to need or how DEEP you’rereally going to have to dig when you’re wrapped in a cocoon of subsidized support, living under somebody else’s roof and feeding off somebody else’s investment … and/or of ballooning debt.
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Real Dreams have to have substance. They have to have sustaining power. They have to have drawing power / driving power. It takes a life-encompassing Dream to carry us through bumps in the road, disappointment, rejection, depression, despondency and disaster. Dreams need to be bigger than Twitter, Facebook, Angry Birds and “Better Call Saul”, combined. Dreams of any account at all need to have meaning and purpose, because they’re going to require everything we’ve got.
For those without a compelling Dream who have no idea what or where their passion or purpose may be, it may help to starting thinking in terms of mere/sheer survival – as in very likely not “making it” in the manner to which they would like to become accustomed. Other attributes to consider are enhanced independence, negotiability, expanded choices, mainstream engagement, enhanced opportunity, “leveragability”, and, ultimately, “being at peace with oneself”.
NOTE: Those who think playing video games, watching sports in the arena or sitcoms on TV, watching movies, shopping ‘til they drop, wearing designer clothes and “living large” is where it’s at and what it’s all about are, in fact, vicariously supporting a whole bunch of other people’s Dreams.
This is about YOU! It’s about YOUR PASSION and YOUR PURPOSE.
We need to find our own PASSION, OWN our own passion, GROW our own passion.
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Mother Teresa found her “calling” to minister to the destitute at age 46, although she had committed herself to a life of service at age 12.
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Grandma Moses was artistically inclined from early childhood but only developed into a renowned painter beginning at age 78 … after arthritis ended her devotion to embroidery. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart learned to play the piano at age 3 and was composing music and performing in public at age 6.
“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write,
if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.
What one can be, one must be.”
Abraham Maslow
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What is YOUR passion?
How DEEP are you digging to FIND it?
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Quartermaster
Author: Lew Kelly
Originated in Bruin, PA, north of Pittsburgh. Lew received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Pittsburgh. He was appointed Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, MA then as Associate Director for Science with the National Bladder Cancer Project before moving to Kentucky to help establish the Markey Cancer Center in 1983.
He served as Associate Director for Administration until retiring in June, 2011. He has expertise in scientific research, writing/editing, grants, and comprehensive organization administration.
