THE GIFT OF A DAY (30); KEEP YOUR DREAM

“Don’t let anyone steal your dreams. Follow your heart, no matter what.”- Unknown 

Dream Again

During a fund raiser, in San Ysidro, he rises and tells a story. It all goes back to a story about a young man who was the son of an itinerant horse trainer who would go from stable to stable, race track to race track, farm to farm and ranch to ranch, training horses. As a result, the boy’s high school career was continually interrupted. When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be and do when he grew up. “That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal, of someday owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in great detail. He even drew a diagram of a 200-acre ranch, showing the location of all the buildings, the stables and the track. Then he drew a detailed floor plan for a 4,000-square-foot house that would sit on a 200-acre dream ranch. “He put a great deal of his heart into the project and the next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F, with a note that read, “see me after class.” “The boy with the dream went to see the teacher after class and asked, “why did I receive an F?” The teacher said, “This is an unrealistic dream for a young boy like you. You have no money. You come from an itinerant family. You have no resources. Owning a horse ranch requires a lot of money. You have to buy the land. You have to pay for the original breeding stock and later you’ll have to pay large stud fees.

THE GIFT OF A DREAM (22); ARE YOU LIKE WALT?

"Let’s have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it." - Abraham Lincoln

Truth be told, nobody else but you can understand your dreams better than yourself. Which is why many people, will oppose you anytime you talk about a dream you passionately wish to fulfill; because they, in most cases don't have the capacity to comprehend it. Someone once said that "dreams are not those pictures you see while asleep at night, but those pictures that prevent you from sleeping at night."

Walt Disney had a dream and he never gave up. Early in his career he was fired because they thought he didn't have "good ideas". That just made him dream more. When he was starting out in Kansas City he couldn't sell his cartoons. Some hinted that he had no talent but Walt Disney had a dream so he set out to conquer his foes. He found a minister who paid him a small amount to draw advertising pictures for his church. Disney had no place to stay, so

THE GIFT A DREAM (17); FULFILLING YOUR DREAMS III

"Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements." - Napoleon Hill

A dream or vision is so important it cannot be over emphasized, without one life becomes mundane and a boring routine leading to nowhere, individuals and entire nations loose zest and enthusiasm they have nothing to motivate or constrain them, they stop to aspire and settle for the present.

About 350 years ago a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year they established a town site. The next year they elected a town government. The third year the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness.

In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?

Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision, their ability to dream again. With a clear dream of what we can become or achieve, no ocean of difficulty is too great. Without it, we rarely move beyond our current boundaries.

Beloved, what then is a dream? This is how Bob Logan described it “Vision: the capacity to create a compelling picture of a desired state of affairs that inspires people to respond; that which is desirable, which could be, should be; that which is attainable. A good vision is right for the times, and right for the people. A good dream promotes faith rather than fear. A good vision motivates people to action. A good vision requires risk-taking. A good vision glorifies God, not people”