Build Tomorrow - Another Day Of Life

So we have gone through “Learning to Dream“, the “Many Worlds of Imagination“, and “Practical Dreams“.  Throughout all of these stages we learn different components of the adults we are going to be.  Sure there are a lot of other factors, such as our environment, our parents influence, and so on and so forth.  But at the root we are what we learn, and that process takes a lifetime.

By the time we hit the end of our college years, and are faced with the reality of going out into a world where we are the grown up, many of those dreams, and imagined futures seem to fade away like sand blows across the beach.  Reality begins to knock, and we have to answer the door.

Suddenly new things take hold like, rent, and bills, and paychecks, and work responsibilities.  We suddenly can’t just sty in and chill.  We don’t mind though this is what we have prepared for our whole lives.

So we settle in a dive into the job of our dreams, or at leas the job we get, that may someday lead to the job of our dreams.  We get our dream car, rather a car that runs, and get our first apartment with a bunch of cool stuff.  Well maybe a chair and a futon.

So what are we doing wrong?  I mean you watch TV and they all have those things so what is it we are doing that isn’t right?  Nothing really.  We are sold this in order to help us move, and buy, and become a nation of debt.  We try to ignore the knock of reality.  

Then we continue our journey, get married, have kids and then start the painful process matching dreams to reality.

More Soon 

~Another Day

I often wonder what it is we really teach kids today.  As infants and toddlers they have the drive to self learn, and dream.  As children we sent them to school, and at home give them the freedom to imagine.  If we are good parents we teach them right from wrong.

I have a middle school aged son.  Now he is not typical as he also struggles with an anxiety disorder, which has improved a lot with help from doctors and medication.  I like to think his mother and I are part of the solution as well. In most ways though he is typical.  He is in the “all about me stage”.

This stage is marked by the loss of some of that outward imagination.  Don’t misunderstand me he still has a great imagination, just less avenues for it to emerge.  It is replaced by this need to put every situation in how it affects them, and what they want.  No longer are Mom and Dad all knowing, they in fact know nothing.  I know I never seem to know anything.

We also have a nine year old.  This is the year he has finally begun to exert his independence, and challenge the status quo.  He has also realized he won’t marry mom someday, and live with us forever.

It’s somewhere between that nine year old, and around that 14 year old that those dreams we talked about in Part I of this series become, well practical.  We start to dream and imagine our lives out of the house, with our own family.  We picture ourselves working and having kids of our own.  We decide that we will be nothing like our parents, yet we always are to a point.

So what the “practical dreams” aren’t dreams.  They are our way of learning to fit into society.  And what society does is change.  And the practical dreams change with it.

So the next time you dream, dream about something fun.  Stay tuned for more of this series.

~Another Day

In the previous edition of this Special Series I talked about Learning to Dream.  As we get older and progress from our infancy and grow into children, those dreams learn to creep into our lives.  The explode into color, and action.

From the innocence of learning about the world around us, the desire to grow and learn so has our ability to dream working overtime.  Then we learn the next huge milestone we as humans need to survive.  Imagination.  We begin to imagine our lives and pretend we are in different worlds, or our favorite Super Hero.

Children today I think have less of that imagination than I did.  I loved to “play horse” by riding on a adults back, or run through the house in my cape with the SHHHH sound of the pretend wind as I flew over the weak and desperate citizens who needed my guidance to save them.  I had fun with and appliance box, and loved what I got, and not what I wanted.

That however was a different time.  I didn’t worry about money, or Webkinz, or beg for a Playstation3. My parents had the money to feed me, to cloth me, and provide me the occasional surprise gift.

The greatest gift I had was my imagination.  In that we began to imagine our lives, paint our picture, even if only in crayon of what our future entailed.  It was real.  And that imagination gave us growth, and even more desire.

Stop for a minute, close your eyes.  Think back to those days.  Can you remember that feeling?  Go ahead, imagine…….

Now that you have opened your eyes, do you feel a little younger?  Do you feel a little sad?  Like you miss those days? 

Those day of innocence, are the foundation of our success.  We are limited only by the bounds of our imagination.  Now think about the children in you life.  Do they have it all or are they missing some of what we may have had.  Think about it before our next segment, “Practical Dreams Aren’t”.

~Another Day

As a child we all are born with one significant ability, the ability to dream.  This ability guides our minds, and helps us with another basic ability, the ability to learn and grow.  Have you ever watched a baby sleep?  From even before birth their minds dream and these dreams take on even more clarity after birth.  They study those around them, watching the world closely.  Their only goal to learn and grow.  As that growth continues, the ability to see and understand the world around them opens whole new worlds.  As I watch my baby sleep I see the ever growing smiles, as his dreams become more vivid.

He watches me closely when I speak, watching my mouth and listening to the sounds that come out.  The goal to make those same sounds himself.

How does this fit with the overall scheme of this series?  Well sit back and let me tell you.  At the age of infancy there are only a few governing rules.  Safety, food, and time to learn.  They don’t worry about money, work, or even objects.  They care only that they feel safe, and have interaction.

It’s those dreams and growth that propel them to the next stage of life.  Living in the world of imagination.

~Another Day

At some point we all stop to determine what is important in our lives.  What really matters.  In this special series we will look at the personal motivations that are the guiding force behind our decisions and the lives we pursue.  If you decide to follow this series, I hope you will participate through comments, and active discussion.

Part one will cover the motivation of childhood.  From there we can move through the age groups.  I hope to relate much of it to my life, but hope through active discussion others will relate it to their own.  I will take your though my journey of how my life got to where it is today, and the steps to climb out of the world I live in to a better life for my family, and me.

This series will not hold the answers for everyone.  It won’t solve the problems of the world.  And it’s a series still on going.  The end has not been written.

I hope you will join us tomorrow for part one.

~Another Day