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What Are Your Dreams?
Several years ago, sometime in my mid-40s, my mother gave me a packet of school papers she had saved from when I was a little girl. I had not seen these since grade school! There was a collection of haikus, some short stories and one that struck my heart, called “When I Grow Up.”
I had written this in 6th grade, but it was describing my life today. It talked about how I wanted to grow up and be a pediatrician. At that time in my life, I was helping raise my younger brother who was severely handicapped. He was non-verbal and could not walk or feed himself and my parents and I had to help with his daily activities. I wrote about how I did not like his pediatrician and that I thought I could do a better job. My dream was to help children and families like mine. At the end of my essay, I also wrote that I hoped to work part-time because I wanted to have time to be with my own family.
Wow! My dream had come true. The power of my written words struck me. As I was reading this article for the first time in almost 30 years, I had achieved being a pediatrician. I was working part-time and had just that year decided to take an extra four weeks off in the summers to travel with my son and husband. It was the first time I had done this, and the chance for me to relax and have a dedicated four weeks with my family was wonderful.
Dreams do start when you are young. When I talk to the children in my office, they will tell me things like I want to be a professional tennis player or football player or scientist. I let them know that they can be anything they want to be. There is no dream that is too big. Some of our dreams may take a lot of work and dedication; sometimes our dreams will change along the way. That is all OK. But we should always have dreams of what we want in our future.
Studies have shown that people who write down their goals and dreams have a higher chance of achieving them. So, write down your dreams and goals. Don’t hold back, you never know what you can accomplish.
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