Living the Dream

I’m listening to the CORE FM, a Rutgers University radio station as I write this from Franklin Tennessee. Yes, the Web has opened a world to us that was completely unknown to our parents, not to mention our grandparents. The DJ I’m listening to is Mike Wollman, a 61 year old friend of mine from our days at Rutgers in Newark. And that is perhaps the larger miracle of the age in which we live.
Mike has had a very successful career as a teacher in secondary schools. While we were in college he held down a DJ slot on the campus radio station. Now here he is enjoying a passion of his, still in fine voice and as much on top of today’s music as he was in the 1960s.
We live in an age when dreams need not be lost because of time wasted, obligations undertaken or narrowly missed opportunities. Long held dreams are not trampled by the fates the way they were in generations past. Thanks to the Web, a plethora of educational opportunities and demand publishing to name a few, there are more avenues for self expression than ever before in history. Mike told me he did in fact dream of being on the radio again for almost 30 years. When the opportunity presented itself he studied, took some tests and made it happen. And in the nicest of touches, his daughter Becca, who was active at the station, gave him an assist.
Our dreams can stay alive for years, even if fed only by the tiniest morsel of hope. The beauty of our world is this: Dreams can come to fruition at any time. One reason is there is less discrimination now. When women and minorities secured the right to chase their dreams, they helped to break down lots of barriers and conventional wisdom including the silly idea that one should act his age.
Certainly a mature individual is capable of discerning the difference between what is truly a young person’s activity and what is open to anyone willing to try. So it is that former President Bush jumped from an airplane to celebrate his 75th, 80th and 85th birthdays. Conventional wisdom surely would suggest that the former President act his age. Fortunately he didn’t and anyone still chasing a dream should take heart.
At a recent Toastmasters meeting the Toastmaster of the day chose fearlessness as the theme of the day which led to some discussion about why people fear chasing their dreams. Some said it’s the fear of ridicule. Others suggested a fear of failure. It’s hard to disagree with those explanations but I suspect there is another fundamental reason why people don’t actually chase their dreams. Most of us have secret dreams that we hold dear for many years. We tell ourselves that one day we will do the thing we really want to do. Maybe it’s something grand like climbing Mt Everest or perhaps a bit more modest like learning to speak French. We would do these things if only we had the time.
So what derails us from chasing our dreams as we crawl, walk and sometimes run through life? I think the underlying fear is that if we fail, the question then is what will happen to our dreams? What in the world will we replace them with if we fail? Lord knows even an unrealized dream can serve a critical purpose in our lives. A dream can be mental comfort food, something we pull out when our lives are completely at odds with the world.
“No I didn’t get that promotion but some day I’m going to get my MBA and I’ll be a huge success.”
“Another broken relationship and it hurts but one day I’ll write a best seller and then…”
Thoughts like that can get us through some difficult moments but it seems like a high price to pay for succor. I think Mike figured out that the beauty of chasing his dream was in the doing. He didn’t become a celebrity DJ talking to millions from a Manhattan studio. But that isn’t how he defined success. He realized that accepting the challenge and doing what he loved was true success. Think about times when you have been really successful. What part of the experience gives you the most satisfaction, the recognition or the actual work you completed?
Life will always have its disappointments. Don’t let one of yours be that you never reached for your secret stars. Remember living the dream is in the doing.

Copyright 2011 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.