Day 6 – Enabling the Dreams of Others #30dreamdays

Can you remember your childhood dreams?  How many have you achieved yet?

I remember the first time I watched Randy Pausch‘s Last Lecture entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” on Youtube.  It was mid-2010, near the end of my daughter Krista’s freshmen year in high school.  She was assigned the book as summer reading in the summer of 2009 and the book was just laying around.*

The lecture was given on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon University to a packed house.  Randy Pausch was a professor at CMU, who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.   The actual lecture and the book that explains it more in depth are a legacy left by Pausch to his young children after his death.  You and I are just beneficiaries as well.

CHILDHOOD DREAMS

One thing that I immediately realized after watching the Last Lecture was that I didn’t have any childhood dreams…at least none that I could remember.  Sure I had said I would like to be a police officer or lawyer but that’s because I heard about those jobs regularly.  I wouldn’t call them real childhood dreams.

I remember being deeply affected by this realization.  It has haunted me these last 4 years especially when I heard Jon Acuff, author of Quitter and Start, say “Figuring out what you are called to do in life is not an act of discovery. Most often, it is an act of recovery.”

I heard the Acuff quote in June 2013 during the pilot program of The Legacy Journey by Dave Ramsey offered at my church.   After that it has been nearly impossible to not obsess about “recovering” my long lost dreams/calling.

I’ve come up with a few answers but this is still a puzzle I am trying to solve.

ENABLING THE DREAMS OF OTHERS

In the meantime, I am pursuing my own 30 Dream Days Challenge and inviting others to do the same.  I believe this is the beginning of my “Enabling the Dreams of Others” theme.   There are so many ways to do this and so you can expect to hear about more of them in future blog posts.

“As you get older you may find that enabling-the-dreams-of-others thing is even more fun.” – Randy Pausch

So my first dream in the “Enabling the Dreams of Others” theme is that I want to be a college professor.  I loved being a student.  I never disliked school and I really enjoyed college.   When I first graduated from Baruch College I had no real plans to go back.  I briefly considered pursuing an MBA but I wasn’t passionate about it and I’m so glad I didn’t do that just because it was the next logical thing after my BBA.

It wasn’t until I watched the Last Lecture that I “recovered” my love of academia and started thinking about pursuing a terminal degree and being a college professor.

I have very different interests and I still have 2 teenage children at home so I’m not going to start applying to PhD programs yet but I’ve already started to research how to get into a PhD program (This article is a good start).  And I am building an impressive resume of diversified experiences and accomplishments.

Teachers of all grades and ages have a profound impact on our lives.  I get really excited about working with people who are investing in themselves and who need professors to help them believe that they can achieve their dreams.    I love the idea of being constantly surrounded by ideas and to be learning from my colleagues and students.   I love the variety of slash careers that blend well with a college professor such as writer/speaker/coach/consultant/professor.

*The Last Lecture video would become the first of many videos like it that I now watch regularly – mostly Ted videos, commencement speeches and now even lectures.  I read the book after watching the lecture;  I recommend doing it in this order.  The Last Lecture was also the book that turned me almost overnight from someone who read 1-2 books a year (if that) into a person who reads in excess of 12 books a year.  It’s probably way more than that…I’m going to start tracking on Goodreads as I have lost track.  Pay attention to the things that spur your dreams…they are keys to your “recovery”.

How do you or would you like to enable the dreams of others?  Leave a comment.

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