A few months ago I was having a conversation with my daughter about the different colleges she is interested in attending.  She is currently in her senior year of high school and was getting ready to start applying for early acceptance.

During the conversation she let me know she had narrowed the list of schools she planned on applying to down to four.  She told me the schools, let me know her order of preference, and also stated it was very critical that she get accepted into her first or second choices.

Being a little confused by that I asked her “If you are applying to four different schools why is it so important you get accepted into your first or second choice?”

She replied “Because these two schools are the only ones I am applying to that have the courses I want to major in.  The other two schools are just my fallback schools.”

“They are your fallback schools?  What are you going to do if you don’t get accepted to one of the two that you really want and have to attend one of the other two schools?”

“That would be terrible!  Then I would have to change what I major in and I would not be happy” she said.

“Would not getting into one of these two schools be the worst thing that could happen and would you have to change your major” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t you have any other options?”

“No!  I would have to change my major” she said.

“If you don’t get into one of the schools that has your major couldn’t you go to one of the others for the first year or two and focus on core courses?  Then you can reapply to the other schools and hopefully transfer before you start working on your major.”

“No!” She said adamantly like it was a stupid idea.

Not to be detoured by her short responses and increasing frustration I continued and asked “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to go to multiple schools.  I want to go to one that has my major and stay there until I graduate.  Is that too much to ask?”

With each question and response I could tell she was getting more and more frustrated.  However, I felt I had to push on.

“I can understand that, however things don’t always work out the way you want them to and you need to consider all your options and be flexible.”

“Can we please just quit talking about this for now?” she asked.

“In a minute.  Is there a reason you can’t be flexible?  Why is it so important that everything goes just the way you have it planned out?”

At that point she could no longer handle my questions and with a very passionate and loud response said “Because it is what I want to do!  Aren’t you doing what you want to do!   When you were my age didn’t you want to do what you are doing today?”

Her response was more of statements than questions, however I felt obligated to treat them as questions and respond as such.

After a short pause when the room had quieted I told her the truth.

“No, I am not.  Yes when I was your age I had plans for what I wanted to do and the person I wanted to become.  But sometimes things happen and not everything always works out exactly how you imagine them.  When they don’t you have to be flexible and adjust.”

Here we were having a conversation where my daughter was sharing her dreams with me and I was trying to be a good parent by making sure she kept things in perspective.  At the time it felt like good advice.  However now I have to ask myself was I being a little overly critical.  In my attempt to help did I mistakenly come across like I didn’t value her dreams or recognize the importance of having dreams and being willing to follow them.

When we’re young it seems like it’s easier to dream.  We’re so full of imagination and creativity with our whole lives ahead of us.

Some of us probably dreamed about being that professional athlete.  Playing basketball out back imagining being in a game where our team was down by 1 point with seconds on the clock with the ball in our hands.  We start counting 3, 2, 1 as we shoot the ball and as it goes through the hoop we start screaming “AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!”

Maybe we dreamed about being up on stage and performing as a musician in front of a sold out crowd.

Or what about having a job where we could help others by becoming a teacher, fireman, police officer, or doctor.

When you are young there are so many things to dream about.

As we get older though things start to change including what we dream of doing and our ability to dream.  Some of the changes are based on different experiences we have had and some are due to our own interests changing over time.

Going into college some people know what they want to study and some do not.  Some start out with a major and later decide to change it.  Others go to one school and later transfer.

When we go out into the working populace there are times we take a job that is aligned with our dreams and there are times we just take the job that is available until the right one comes around.

Sadly there are also those of us that don’t really know what we want to do.  We may spend our whole lives searching for our purpose and never find it.

After I told my daughter that I was not doing what I had dreamed of doing when I was her age I decided it was time to take our conversation in another direction.  I explained to her that if we randomly picked out 10 people and asked them what they planned to do with their career over the next 3 to 5 years the majority of them would probably not know.  Of the few that did have an idea most were probably not currently working on goals that would help them achieve what they hoped.

This caught her by surprise.  Being very driven and structured not having goals or working towards them was a foreign concept for her.  She had no idea how different she is from the average person.

I can understand her confusion.  My whole life I have been a dreamer and for the past 20 plus years I have been a very goal focused individual.  However, there was a time in my life where all my dreams where just that.  Dreams with not enough focus and effort on my part to make them a reality.  Luckily at some point I realized in order for our dreams to become reality we have to be willing to stay focused on them and put forth the hard work and effort it takes.  Even then things do not always happen the way we dreamed them.  Sometimes we come up a little short of what we hoped and sometimes we go well beyond of what we dreamed possible.

From our conversation and the understanding that failing to accomplish your dreams could cause you pain and disappointment I had to ask myself, is it better to have dreams and not fully accomplish them or to not have a dream at all?

To me the answer is simple.  You have to dream!  Regardless of age or where you are in life it’s important to be able to dream.  Our dreams are our hope and vision of a better tomorrow.  We must dream and work hard towards making them a reality.  Things won’t always workout the way we dreamed them.  Sometimes we will come up a little short and sometimes we will go well beyond.  Either way we will always be better off for having dreams and dedicating ourselves to fulfilling them.

“Dream big and live a fulfilled life while being a positive influence for others to remember.”