Do Dreams Even Matter?

Randy Pausch was able to achieve so many of his dreams because his goal wasn't to succeed at everything. His goal was to try. He taught that we should live our life choices as experiments—going into it with the expectation of “trying it out and seeing if it works”. So many times in life, people won’t try something because they’re worried they’ll fail. Last week we learned to be aware of the risks associated with potential failure—if the risk is minimal, try it! If you’re likely to lose your home or family, it’s definitely not worth the risk. I love Randy’s philosophy of just trying things out to see if they work. 

 

The first time I did a triathlon, I knew I wouldn’t do great. My expectation was to finish the race, and if I did well, that was an added bonus—after all, just DOING a triathlon is quite an accomplishment!

 

Over the last five years, I have put more effort into striving for challenging experiences. I have taken on huge challenges in an effort to grow, enjoy the experience, and feel a sense of accomplishment when I’m done. Some of those “dreams” have been: going back to school, moving to a new state, finishing a basement, raising honey bees, and starting a cake business. Dreaming is important because it helps us find the motivation to grow. I am more likely to be persistent in achieving something that inspires me.

 

My mom was an amazing example to me. She loved to learn new things and taught me a lot of what she knew. What really impressed me was when she was sick in bed, dying from cancer and she spent her time learning new things! She was too sick to work in her gardens, so she learned more about knitting. She spent hours knitting and crocheting, and when she was too sick to count the rows, she’d listen to podcasts about gardening. She could have easily said—'It doesn’t matter now, I can stop learning because I’ll never be able to do this anyway.’ But she didn’t. She kept learning. She was such a powerful example to me.

 

One of my childhood dreams was to build a really cool playroom for my kids. I can fulfill this dream by building a challenge course in our yard for my kids to play on. I don’t have deck-building skills, but I do have a deck that needs to be replaced. Learning how to build a challenge course for my kids will help me gain the skills necessary to replace our deck AND fulfill my dream of building a cool place for my kids to play.