When he was young, he envisioned himself as a fish and game officer. Somehow as children, we know what we want. His dad however, discouraged him. So, when he went to school, he looked at the catalog, said, well, I guess I can make a living doing this...and that is what he did. Day in, Day out for forty years. He didn’t enjoy it. But he did it because he had a family to support. Now, I have to tell you, that I love my Dad for this sacrifice, but I wouldn’t wish it for him.
Today, at Sea World in Florida, as I was watching the dolphin show I thought, “That is something I would LOVE to do. In elementary school, living in Southwest Michigan we often visited animal refuges and I knew that was my calling in life! But I didn’t. As I pondered this, three things came to mind. Three things kept me from following childhood dreams.
- Lack of imagination. Sometimes we know what we love, we just can’t see how to make it profitable.
- Fear- what if I fail? What will other people think?
- Self Discipline- The work ethic it takes to do something hard.
I thought of one of my daughters. She is so much like me. She likes so many of the things I liked. She has tons of passion. She is way more athletic than I ever was and she has the desire to do something great. It is too late for me to do some of the things I once dreamed of, but not for her. However, I know that if I don’t help her to prepare for those dreams, there are three things that will stand in her way.
Lack of Imagination: We can help children with this by exposing them to many possibilities. Then we can talk about them. Traveling with children is a great opportunity to expose children to new ideas and cultures, but it is expensive. There are many opportunities close to home if we look for them. AND, there is the internet. We can help our children to find their passions and then look for how they can use them. Instead of discouraging them, help them to enlarge their imaginations. I couldn’t see as a child where my interests and talents could be used and made profitable.
Fear: What if I fail? What will other people think? There are so many fears that children, and people in general have. Fear is the biggest reason people don’t go after dreams. As parents, we don’t have to make it worse. Maybe their goal isn’t the most practical. Maybe we don’t know anyone who has ever accomplished such a thing. Maybe we know thousands of kids who want to do the same thing. Maybe we don’t even know that the goal IS a thing. Who are we to decide or even negatively influence what our children adventure to accomplish. I allowed fear to keep me from opening my eyes to possibilities.
Self Discipline: All the dreams in the world will go no where without a work ethic to go with it. Life is hard. To be able to make great things happen, we have to be able to do hard things. We don’t wake up one day and say, I’m going to do hard things today. It takes years of training.
So many of my cousins are going to look at this and think, "Hard?" But I'm going to use this example because at the time my children thought I was crazy for attempting such a thing.
I wanted to bury our trampoline. I wanted it set into the ground for both safety and aesthetic reasons. My husband was opposed to it, so it took me years to come to the point where I was willing to make it happen. It was between two fruit trees that were growing to the point that there just wasn’t room for it. So this spring, I told two of my boys we were going to did the holes with shovels. I had a few cousins, very athletically inclined, who had done it so I figured we could do it.
My sons Reuben and Tobler somewhat reluctantly opted in. At first it was a bit of an adventure. As the weeks wore on, it became harder. Having Reuben with his sense of humor was a life saver. He joked about digging to china and sometimes made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe, let alone dig! I adore that boy! He is the light in all of our heavy. It took us a month, but we did it! It became something we looked at to remember we could do hard things!
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