I can be the world’s biggest cynic sometimes.
I call myself the “eternal optimist,” and mostly that’s true. But sometimes my mother’s voice rings in my head saying things like…
“There is no such thing as happily ever after.”
“Life isn’t all fun and games, you know.”
“You can’t depend on anyone; the only one you can trust is yourself.”
WTF?
I know she was just trying to protect me, but it hurts me to think that I would crush anyone’s dreams the way she crushed mine. And even if I don’t say it, I’ve caught myself Bah! Humbugging internally more than a few times.
I watched the movie, The Greatest Showman, tonight and I finally got something my mother never did.
P.T. Barnum is the plucky tailor’s son who falls in love with the rich patron’s daughter, an unlikely match. And they sing this song to each other:
They can say, they can say it all sounds crazy
They can say, they can say I’ve lost my mind
I don’t care, I don’t care, so call me crazy
We can live in a world that we design
‘Cause every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
A million dreams for the world we’re gonna make
There are so many people in this world who are bitter and angry because they let someone crush their dreams or because they squashed themselves down to fit in.
They don’t believe in dreams anymore and they will give you a long list of reasons why yours is bound to fail.
Don’t listen.
Without those dreams, we wouldn’t have the Sistine Chapel, we’d wouldn’t have landed on the moon, and millions of children never would have been born.
The dreams and the nightmare go hand in hand; it’s the spark that lights you up and we need them BOTH.
I can’t promise you that it’s going to work out exactly the way you plan. In fact, you can be pretty sure it won’t, ‘cuz this reality seems to specialize in curve balls and blind alleys designed to knock us on our asses.
But dreaming is what we’re made for. Creating and actualizing is what we came here to do.
The world is so much more beautiful for all the hopes and dreams we pour into it.
Be awesome.
Stephanie
