Why being a dreamer is a beautiful thing
We generally think of a dreamer as an unrealistic person.
You know: not practical.
He (or she) is just a dreamer, people say of someone,
implying that they will amount to nothing.
I have always been a dreamer.
Some have wondered if my dreams would ever “amount to” anything.
I was called “unrealistic.”
One time still makes me laugh, because I was the one who said it.
I was at a family wedding decades ago,
and for some unknown reason
dropped this comment into a conversation:
“I don’t have a realistic bone in my body,” I said with a smile.
The relative I was talking with, a very wealthy man,
looked me in the eyes and stated: “It shows.”
You’d think that would have discouraged me.
It didn’t.
I kept right on dreaming.
Thank God I did, or I never would have gotten to live my dreams.
I am living one of my dreams right now, as I write to you.
How about you?
Are you a dreamer?
Do you ever hear a bully (in reality or in your head)
trying to shame you by telling you: Be realistic!
Dolly Parton is a dreamer.
I think she imagined herself, don’t you?
I mean, who else could have come up with
who that woman is!!!
And look how she makes her dreams real.
She takes her love, her talent, and her imagination
and transforms the world.
She has transformed the backwoods community she grew up in
from a severely limiting place
into a place where the sky is the limit.
I know. I saw it. I spent several days there last Christmas.
She recently wrote a book called Dream More.
I brought a copy home with me.
In it she urges all of us to dream more,
learn more,
care more,
BE more.
How’s that for beautiful?
Dolly was a young girl back in the 60’s
when those Kennedy dreamers, JFK and RFK,
were our leaders.
Back then, RFK declared:
Some men see things as they are, and say why.
I dream of things that never were, and say why not.
Can’t you just hear little Dolly saying to herself:
“Yeah, and some women dream of things that never were, too!”
Right now maybe you are saying to yourself:
“Yeah, but how can I ever be anything like Dolly, or RFK???”
Be yourself
Actually, you don’t need to be like them.
You just need to be yourself.
And give yourself permission to dream.
It is never too late.
Now is the perfect time
to give yourself permission to dream a new dream.
Or one you’ve had all your life.
Then surprise yourself
by making just a little piece of that dream real.
You have it in you.
There is always more inside you than you realize.
My dreams
I live on my dreams.
They sustain me, because I am always
having to grow to reach toward them.
For example, for many years I have had a dream
of getting up on stage and speaking to a huge audience.
To give myself a little piece of my dream,
I’m going to videotape myself speaking
and put it up on my website or YouTube!
Who knows haha—somebody might listen.
But this dreamer will be happy even if they don’t.
Dr. Hall
Question:
When you think about your dreams,
can you imagine giving yourself a little piece of one?
Some people use the word dream instead of aspiration. To me, a dream is very similar to imagination... closer to art.
An aspiration is what one desires to do or become... Which can be different from a dream. When I hear people say you can be anything you can dream, I flinch. One cannot be the fastest runner in the world unless one has unusual physical aptitude. That type of dreaming can be detrimental because one can have a dream squashed if one doesn't have the necessary genetic prerequisites. A person who cannot carry a tune will never sing like Whitney Houston. If one has these kinds of dreams one will forever be disappointed.
But dreaming can be its own reward. One can dream of beautiful things when things aren't beautiful. One can dream along with a beautiful tune in one's head.
Have any of you ever been perplexed and confounded about something for many days or weeks or months? Then one morning you wake up and the answer is obvious. Maybe you dreamed the answer. If you play music or if you write music you can dream and create new songs.
I think artistic expression and dreams are more closely aligned than dreams and purposeful aspirations.
Dreams can be what shore us up in hard times. Something to focus on and work for. I think there has to be a certain amount of reality tempering dreams. If I am 5' 4" tall and weigh 250 pounds, a dream of being an NBA center is probably not going to happen for me. Reality is a cruel bitch at times. Someone once said "life is the process of finding what you don't suck at". For many years I kept a copy of "If" by Rudyard Kipling framed on my wall. Part of that poem reads "If you can dream and not make dreams your master; if you can think but not make thoughts your aim. If you can meet with triumph and disaster; and treat those two imposters just the same." That poem helped me through some rough patches. We need dreamers, but dreams must reach an accommodation with reality sometimes.