Believe

A friend of mine posted a meme recently. It was a cute photo with the caption, "Dream big, you'll grow into it" Immediately following that post, another friend from another state posted, "Sometimes you have to dream someone else's dream until they are ready to believe it themselves"

When I read the second post, it struck me. It's been several weeks, and I cannot get it out of my head.

"Sometimes you have to dream someones else's dream until they are ready to believe it themselves"

Having coached girl's volleyball for almost 20 years, I firmly believe that one of the greatest gifts a coach, teacher, or parent can give a person they interact with, is self-confidence. Teaching an ant to walk like an elephant can be easier than helping someone believe in themselves when they don't, but often, the difficult things in life are the things most worth doing.

Confidence is a lot like chocolate. With the perfect number of M&M's and little bit of your favorite I-tunes, your entire garage is cleaned out, the rest of your to-do list is completed, and you are sitting comfortably with a cold beer watching football on a Sunday afternoon with a happy spouse. With too much chocolate, you are struggling to workout in the morning, your kids are playing in the street, and your watching Naked and Afraid with a glass of whiskey thinking you can maybe do better next weekend...

Believing in your own dream certainly takes confidence and wiping away self doubt, which happily creeps into the space vacated when a can do attitude runs into a wall. Teaching confidence to a child, by goodness, takes some focus.

So when my youngest says she wants to be a doctor and my oldest says rockstar. I cringe, and believe it for them until they grow into it. Deep down I may have questions, like would I want this little stinker traipsing across the world treating ebola or my little bohemian chumming it up in a tour bus around the country. Really I am wondering will I be paying more for a phd or for rehab? Isn't this one of the great questions in the effectiveness of our health care system anyways, pay for prevention or pay more for cure?

Then I remembered one of the other joys of helping someone else dream their dream until they are ready to believe it themselves.

Whether they make it or not, the dream makes the present special and the hard work fun

The other day as I skipped through the parking lot to church hand in hand with a 4 year old, I pictured visiting her in her 30's, and simply grabbing her hand and whipping out a full high knee skip down the main aisle at Children's Hospital on our way to lunch together, with many tiny sets of smiling eye's peering from their doorways or joining in like a scene from Fame. "Paging doctor skippypants"

"Sometimes you have to dream someone else's dream until they are ready to believe it themselves"

Pick a buddy, help them dream it, it's a blast!

Enjoy!

bvd