Dreams

 In his “Last Lecture,” Randy Pausch gave advice on how to achieve your childhood dream. This got me wondering what was my childhood dream? I don’t know that I had one clear dream.

I listened to the radio constantly and dreamed of being a radio DJ, but I’ve done that. I was able to take a radio broadcasting class in high school, then got an internship and just kept showing up after I graduated until I earned an on-air shift. I started doing overnights on weekends, then Saturday evenings, and then a lunchtime shift with a request show. I operated the board on another station for the satellite morning show and voice tracked shifts on two more stations. I didn’t really think or even wish to be a national radio host, but my goal was to someday work at a station that starts with W (anywhere east of the Mississippi River) and work in a large market. When I was 19 I was hired to do weekends on WYYL in Memphis, TN, a large market. In two months I worked my way to afternoon drive before the entire station was flipped to satellite Spanish programming and we were all laid off. I was satisfied.

I dreamed of traveling, but as a poor kid from Yakima, WA I didn’t really think that was going to happen. However, after I was laid off in Memphis I was put in touch with an engineer who was traveling to her company’s subsidiary in Toulon, France, and needed someone to come with her to take care of her son. I went to France four times over the course of six months with three months of total time in the country. We spent our first and last weekends in Paris and I was able to go up the Eifel Tower, see Notre Dame and Saint Chappelle, go to the Orsay Museum and the Louvre twice, take a boat tour down the Seine and visit Versailles. The rest of the time we were on the French Riviera and toured around the Provence area and swam in the Mediterranean. We took a weekend to go to Switzerland and saw Geneva, Lausanne, and Bern. 

When my nanny job was done I moved back home and when my friend said she was going home to visit her family in Japan my brother and I went along. It was the kind of thing that would always have suggested and joked about, but after going to Europe I realized that it was something I could actually do; so I did.

I dreamed of flying in a hot air balloon, going to the Olympics, being in a beauty pageant, and finding someone who loved me more than anything in the world. I have done all of these things. I honestly feel like I’ve accomplished almost all of my childhood dreams, but I wonder if I just remember the dreams I’ve achieved and have lost the ones I didn’t fulfill? What am I missing? It’s been years since I did any of these things, so have I stopped chasing my dreams?

Randy Pausch said that brick walls aren’t there to stop us, they’re there to stop the other people who can be stopped by them. But which of those people am I? I accomplished many of my childhood dreams, but was I really dreaming big? And could I have pursued my dreams further or did I stop as soon as I’d reached the bare minimum? What else could I have achieved?

In his lecture, Randy Pausch was facing the last days of his life, but he was upbeat and positive. He wasn’t scared of dying because he had lived while he was alive. He had clear dreams and goals and went for them. He wasn’t afraid of judgment or consequences (he drew equations all over his room as a kid), he persevered in the face of rejection and failure until he achieved what he set out to do. He was also able to adjust his dreams as he grew so that he wasn’t a prisoner of past goals. I’m sure he would have kept going, growing, and dreaming had he been given the chance, but he was at peace when he received his fatal diagnosis because he’d done what he could. May we all have such peace.

 

Lesson learned: I can achieve my dreams when I go for them and I should dream big.

Lesson not yet learned: What are my deepest dreams?