It's Graduation Time, and Commencement Speakers

[MineralMan]

will be saying the same old things they always say.

"You're on the verge of the rest of your lives. Go and live your dream."

That's the usual platitude. I have some thoughts on that, and posted them in another thread, but I decided to make a separate thread from that post. I deleted that post and have reproduced it here. Make of it what you will. It's just one guy's opinion.

People think of "dreams" and get confused. What is a dream, anyhow?

What your dreams should be and what they are makes all the difference. If you "dream," for example, of being wealthy, a rock star, or a star professional athlete, you're not likely to reach that goal. If you "dream" of being the next Bill Gates or President Obama, you're going to be frustrated.

Instead, if your dreams are related to how you live your life, you're far more likely to succeed in fulfilling them. If you dream of making a positive difference in people's lives, for example, there are a number of ways to fulfill that dream. If you dream of creating beauty in the world, you have many paths to that dream. If you dream of creating a wonderful family and raising children who represent your values, you can accomplish that, no matter what your career is.

Dreams should not be of commercial success or star status in anything. They should be of making your life worthwhile in some way that appeals to you. If you dream of making music throughout your life, you can do that without being a rock star. If you dream of creating art, you can do that, no matter whether your work hangs in a museum or on the walls of your home. If you dream of helping people reach their potential, you can do that in many ways.

Living your dream is not a bad goal at all, as long as your dream is of striving to do something worthwhile, and of living your life to the fullest. If your dream is narrow and limited to financial success or fame, you're probably going to be disappointed.

That's my opinion, as someone who has lived 68 years of a life following my dreams. I'm not rich. I'm not famous. But, I'm fulfilled through doing what I chose to do, despite changing that choice many times. My dream was always to do interesting things that challenged me and that somehow benefited others. I've been very successful in doing that. Everything I've done has been interesting and challenging, but not necessarily very profitable. The older I get, the less I care about financial success, and the more I care about the course of my life in other ways.

Live the dream. Work toward your passion. Just make sure that your dreams and passions are worth the effort.

[tblue]

1. Lovely! 2 points:

1) At a local middle school, a teacher asked her class to write about what kind of lifestyle they aspired to have when they become adults. Then they were to write about their dream career. And then she proceeded to tell them whether the two made sense together. If their dream job was to be a writer or a pilot, for exanple, she told them they probably wouldn't be able to afford to live in the lifestyle they had in mind. If they really want that kind of life, they'll need a career that paid more.

I know she was being practical, but it Made me sad. I always thought young people ought to be encouraged to dream. But this teacher took a lot of big dreams down a peg. The students were in essence told to, "Get real." Don't be a dancer; be a doctor.

2) Did you see Bill Clinton's commencement address at Howard U? Well worth watching.
www.c-spanvideo.org/program/312699-1

Wonderful post. My kid graduated last year and I'm going to have him read it. Thank you!!!

[MineralMan]

3. Thanks. Dreams and desired lifestyle are often very

different things. If a lifestyle is the dream, I'm not impressed, generally.

As someone whose main career was as a writer, and a pretty successful one, at that, I know that writing is a profession that is unlikely to make one rich. A few people manage that, but very few.

[HughBeaumont]

2. The problem we have is that there are "dreams" . . . and there is "paying the bills".

For 1% of the population, that's both.

For 99% of us, the "paying the bills" thing often takes up a lion's share of our time when commute is factored in and, in turn, the time we need to make the "dream" happen.

[MineralMan]

4. We all have to pay the bills. That's a given.

How you live often plays a role in those bills, of course. The dream isn't about how to make money, though, or shouldn't be. Such dreams are not going to be fulfilling in the long run. Dreams should be about life direction, rather than career. That way, those dreams can usually be realized. Often, work can be compatible with those dreams, if the dreams are compatible with work.

If someone's dreams have to do with how much money they'll make, I'd caution them about the quality of their dream.

I've lived on the edge of not being able to pay the bills most of my life. And that's with a fairly scaled-back lifestyle. My dreams have had to do with other things than money. For example, one of my dreams is to help teach people to do things that will improve their lives in some way. Often that has had to do with practical things, which is why almost all of my writing has been instructional in nature. From do-it-yourself projects to writing about making the most of technology, that has been the bulk of my career. I'm very good at it, and managed to pay the bills for over two decades by doing that.

Other dreams have had to do with helping people in other ways. Most of the time, doing that has made no money at all.

The main dream of my life has been to do interesting things that engaged me and made use of my particular skills. I've done that, changing professions or adding professions from time to time. None of them have been destructive in any way. All of them have been interesting to me and usually to others. Most often, they've also been helpful to others, or at least informative.

I've never dreamed about having tons of money or even an excess of it. If I had dreamed of that, I would be disappointed. I'm not disappointed, because my expectations were not high in that regard.

Dreams of material things are likely to be unfulfilled.